It is easy to describe the film without giving too much away. Its plot summary tells you exactly what happens:
"Three students and a school teacher disappear on an excursion to Hanging Rock, in Victoria, on Valentine's Day, 1900. Widely (and incorrectly) regarded as being based on a true story, the movie follows those that disappeared, and those that stayed behind, but it delights in the asking of questions, not the answering of them."
Peter Weir in his early film skillfully moves from the recognizable intimate world of the girls' school filled with poetry and high neck dresses, corsets and the mutual crushes to a pagan environment in which "modern" principles and standards have no meaning and no values.
If we assume that the movie does not belong to the straight realism genre but to the "magical" or "mythological" realism, a lot of things would make sense. We may never find out what exactly happened to the girls and their teacher but it would not matter - we could guess. I see this movie as Miranda's story. The girl of such beauty, charm, and charisma simply could not exist in this world for long time. She seemed to know or to feel it when she told her friend Sarah, "You have to learn how to love someone else because I am not going to be here for long time". I've read many times that this is a movie about sexual repression and I would not say that I completely disagree but I think that it has many interpretations, and with its open end and the mystery still present after all these years, any explanation is possible. During their ascend to the Hanging Rock and the noon day nap, the girls and especially Miranda don't seem repressed or unhappy; on the contrary, they are in the state of content and bliss. I'd say that they were longing for something miraculous to happen and I did not feel the presence of menace or nightmare luring through the trees and ready to materialize in the still hot air and swallow them.
I think that Miranda with her golden hair and ethereal beauty was reincarnation of the young Helen of Troy. At that day, February 14 1900, two parallel worlds came as close to each other as possible and there was a window inside the Hanging Rock. One was the turn of the 20th century Victorian world with its restrictions, rules, and laws of what is proper and not and another- the ancient world of the Greek Gods that used to rule the Heaven , Sea, Earth, and Underworld and sometimes, would kidnap the mortal women of immortal beauty. You'd ask "What? Why"? I say, how about the Flute de Pan, the instrument that was first invented by the God of Nature, Pan and which hypnotizing sounds lead the girls inside the rock? The Gods knew that Helen's beauty could destroy the countries and be merciless killing force for many men. They did not stop it thousands years ago from happening - they decided to do it on the Valentine day, 1900. They took Miranda -Helen and I hope they sent her to the Island of Blessed Spirits where she is happy and where "even the highest flying birds of memory could not reach her."
You know, I wish the film stopped right after the disappearance. As much as the further scenes involving the search for the girls and their teacher, the sad and heartbreaking Dickensian tale of an orphan Sarah, and the story of the "iron lady", Mrs. Appleyard are interesting and compelling, they seem strangely unnecessary - they don't add anything to the Miranda's vanishing. The movie is about eternal beauty and femininity, their rarity and impossibility to reach and to own them. The social aspects would work perfectly in another movie, not in this one. Anyway, first thirty minutes of "Picnic at Hanging Rock" are perfection, beauty, and unbearable sensual delight that I've not seen or experienced very often in the movies. I'd rate first 30 minutes 10+, the rest of the film 7.5.
"Three students and a school teacher disappear on an excursion to Hanging Rock, in Victoria, on Valentine's Day, 1900. Widely (and incorrectly) regarded as being based on a true story, the movie follows those that disappeared, and those that stayed behind, but it delights in the asking of questions, not the answering of them."
Peter Weir in his early film skillfully moves from the recognizable intimate world of the girls' school filled with poetry and high neck dresses, corsets and the mutual crushes to a pagan environment in which "modern" principles and standards have no meaning and no values.
If we assume that the movie does not belong to the straight realism genre but to the "magical" or "mythological" realism, a lot of things would make sense. We may never find out what exactly happened to the girls and their teacher but it would not matter - we could guess. I see this movie as Miranda's story. The girl of such beauty, charm, and charisma simply could not exist in this world for long time. She seemed to know or to feel it when she told her friend Sarah, "You have to learn how to love someone else because I am not going to be here for long time". I've read many times that this is a movie about sexual repression and I would not say that I completely disagree but I think that it has many interpretations, and with its open end and the mystery still present after all these years, any explanation is possible. During their ascend to the Hanging Rock and the noon day nap, the girls and especially Miranda don't seem repressed or unhappy; on the contrary, they are in the state of content and bliss. I'd say that they were longing for something miraculous to happen and I did not feel the presence of menace or nightmare luring through the trees and ready to materialize in the still hot air and swallow them.
I think that Miranda with her golden hair and ethereal beauty was reincarnation of the young Helen of Troy. At that day, February 14 1900, two parallel worlds came as close to each other as possible and there was a window inside the Hanging Rock. One was the turn of the 20th century Victorian world with its restrictions, rules, and laws of what is proper and not and another- the ancient world of the Greek Gods that used to rule the Heaven , Sea, Earth, and Underworld and sometimes, would kidnap the mortal women of immortal beauty. You'd ask "What? Why"? I say, how about the Flute de Pan, the instrument that was first invented by the God of Nature, Pan and which hypnotizing sounds lead the girls inside the rock? The Gods knew that Helen's beauty could destroy the countries and be merciless killing force for many men. They did not stop it thousands years ago from happening - they decided to do it on the Valentine day, 1900. They took Miranda -Helen and I hope they sent her to the Island of Blessed Spirits where she is happy and where "even the highest flying birds of memory could not reach her."
You know, I wish the film stopped right after the disappearance. As much as the further scenes involving the search for the girls and their teacher, the sad and heartbreaking Dickensian tale of an orphan Sarah, and the story of the "iron lady", Mrs. Appleyard are interesting and compelling, they seem strangely unnecessary - they don't add anything to the Miranda's vanishing. The movie is about eternal beauty and femininity, their rarity and impossibility to reach and to own them. The social aspects would work perfectly in another movie, not in this one. Anyway, first thirty minutes of "Picnic at Hanging Rock" are perfection, beauty, and unbearable sensual delight that I've not seen or experienced very often in the movies. I'd rate first 30 minutes 10+, the rest of the film 7.5.