It'd been quite some time since I last saw Picnic At Hanging Rock, but as soon as I heard that haunting Pan flute it all came back to me and I felt the goosebumps covering my skin once again. This film still has that level of quality to it, and I still consider it one of my absolute favorite films of all time.
As soon as you push that tempting Play button on your remote control as you're watching the Criterion Collection release of this film, you're thrown into a dream that starts as a fantasy but quickly turns into a nightmare as those girls disappear at hanging rock. You know that they're going to and there's nothing you can do to stop it...
I have discovered that most people speak of this film as drama, or maybe something in the line of an art film, which is funny to me as I've always seen it as a horror film. I mean, this film is really scary. Those girls disappeared and noone ever knew what happened to them. I remember thinking of this film as I saw The Blair Witch Project back in 99. Those kids also disappeared in the middle of the woods, only; in that film, you saw what happened to them, something that remains a mystery in this. That's what makes it so great.
It has to be told though, that the film does lose it's pace a bit towards the end as all the scenes are centered around the Appleyard school and leaving out on the mysterious Rock, but that is when the Pan flute is reintroduced, which keeps you in the meditative state you've been lulled into during the course of the film. There's so many scenes that you'll end up thinking about for hours to figure out what they really meant, only to come out empty handed, or possibly with a headache as a result. For instance: I've never understood the importance of the brother & sister link between the kids form the orphanage. If a film touches you in the way that this film does, you can't help but giving it the highest of praise and the 10/10 rating that it truly deserves. This is Peter Weir's one, and unfortunately only, true masterpiece as of yet; a film you must see before you leave the face of the earth and vanish into that dark shadowy place beyond; running into your very own Hanging Rock.
As soon as you push that tempting Play button on your remote control as you're watching the Criterion Collection release of this film, you're thrown into a dream that starts as a fantasy but quickly turns into a nightmare as those girls disappear at hanging rock. You know that they're going to and there's nothing you can do to stop it...
I have discovered that most people speak of this film as drama, or maybe something in the line of an art film, which is funny to me as I've always seen it as a horror film. I mean, this film is really scary. Those girls disappeared and noone ever knew what happened to them. I remember thinking of this film as I saw The Blair Witch Project back in 99. Those kids also disappeared in the middle of the woods, only; in that film, you saw what happened to them, something that remains a mystery in this. That's what makes it so great.
It has to be told though, that the film does lose it's pace a bit towards the end as all the scenes are centered around the Appleyard school and leaving out on the mysterious Rock, but that is when the Pan flute is reintroduced, which keeps you in the meditative state you've been lulled into during the course of the film. There's so many scenes that you'll end up thinking about for hours to figure out what they really meant, only to come out empty handed, or possibly with a headache as a result. For instance: I've never understood the importance of the brother & sister link between the kids form the orphanage. If a film touches you in the way that this film does, you can't help but giving it the highest of praise and the 10/10 rating that it truly deserves. This is Peter Weir's one, and unfortunately only, true masterpiece as of yet; a film you must see before you leave the face of the earth and vanish into that dark shadowy place beyond; running into your very own Hanging Rock.