Figure One - Cover
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a 1975 Australian feature film
directed by Peter Weir and starring Anne-Louise Lambert, Helen Morse, Rachel
Roberts and Vivean Gray. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name,
by author Joan Lindsay.
The film relates the story of the disappearance of
several schoolgirls and their teacher during a picnic to Hanging Rock on St.
Valentine's Day in 1900, and the subsequent effect on the local community.
•Directed by:
Peter Wier
•Written by: Joan
Lindsay & Cliff Green
•Genre: Drama,
Mystery, Suspense & Classics
•Duration: 115
Minutes
Figure Two - Scene at the Hanging Rock
Picnic at the Hanging rock starts at a Victorian school
for girls in which the girls set off for a picnic trip to “The Hanging Rock”. Once
getting there three of the girls ask if they can explore, they head of towards
the rock slowly making their way up it becoming drowsy but finally go through a
passage and not to be seen again, leaving behind suspicion. Throughout the film
and at the end the audience is left wondering what the film was about and what
actually happened to the girls, which makes you sit in your seat and puzzle
about it for a few minutes.
“We are left with an uncanny
respect for the mysteries in life that can never be solved by logic alone.”
(Brussat, 2002)
The possibility of what happened to the girls is
unsettling to the audience who are so use to finding out what happens at an end
of a film, but unlike most films “Picnic at Hanging Rock” doesn’t do this, it simply
tells you a story and leaves it up to your imagination to decide – was it
evil?, was the hanging rock possessed? or did the girls fall down the rock to
their deaths?
“It's all pretty overheated and under
explained but this arty, vague, and possibly supernatural movie lingers on in
the memory.”(Guide, 2010)
Figure Three - The lost girls
The Australian setting for the film is beautiful place,
the school and the girls are also beautiful, which makes the beginning of the
film peaceful and calming but once they head to the hanging rock, the presences
of evil and horror starts to creep in putting the audience on edge and then the
girls start to act strange and camera angles from bushes, plants and insects
which alienates the audience from the scenery and making them fear for the
girls.
“His visionary camerawork keeps
resting on plants, animals, hives of restless insects, the screen almost
bursting with wildness. Weir’s emphasis is on nature’s alien quality, how these
prim girls are set against unknowable forces.” (Nathan, 2010)
Illustrations
Bibliography
Brussat Review - http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/films.php?id=1313
Guide Review - http://movies.tvguide.com/picnic-hanging-rock/review/109197
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