ketutar Whose story is this supposed to be? The only interesting people were miss McCraw who being treated like crap, and then she wanders off and we'll never hear of her again. The orphans Albert and Sara. Nothing is told about them much either. Millie and Tom. And they too are just bystanders. To someone's story. Mlle de Poitiers? She has an engagement ring, so - Nah. We will never know who she was engaged to, or what ever happened with her. Why is she in charge at the picnic? Why isn't she punished in any way for losing the girls? I suppose it's because she's SO BEAUTIFUL. That's the only reason for womenfolks to exist. At least in this movie. Except the headmistress. She is there just to be mean. Because power does that to women. And then she becomes a drunk and kills herself. Possibly. Too many people with not much to say. Is this Michael's story? Or Sgt. Bumpher's story? I don't know. I don't think Peter Weir knows.Nothing is ever solved. There's too much ESP in this movie. "I just know I won't be coming back." "I just know I have to go there". People seem to have no other reason to do what they do except that they "know".I hate the "knowing"... the girls are meaninglessly wandering about being airy fairy, talking about love and stuff and things that sound meaningful with a breathy airy light voice. The music is horrible. It's like watching these "you'll never believe these mystical unsolved bla bla bla" videos on YouTube. This one is just 100 minutes in stead of 10 minutes. The clothes... Why is everyone wearing white except the only two women with anything in their head? And then the church clothes... *sigh* Why?Make-up - what's with all these bruises and scratches? Where did he get that cut on his head?The set... was obviously a set. It didn't look like it was an actual room.What's with the butt scene? How was that in any way necessary?And the girls hopping over the brook? There was no need for the fat girl to put her foot into water, but, sure, she did, and the other three, slim, "beautiful" girls, just hopped over like gaselles. Except that Saint Miranda the Angel had to lift her skirt to show off her legs, even though she never needed to lift her skirt. *sigh*And the practically only fat girl wasn't only fat, she was lazy, whiny, stupid and ridiculous and gets slapped. That slap scene also... All the girls are on Iris, and this amazing, wonderful Mademoiselle goes find the fat girl to slap her. Cinematography... er... I don't even care. The story is so fragmented, nonsensical, stupid and boring, I really don't care if it even has any technical value. I give it 2 only because I've seen worse movies, but I don't recommend this to anyone for any reason. I'm sure there are hundreds of movies that are better use of time for any reason anyone could have for seeing this movie. Well, except if one has decided to see all Peter Weir movies. Poor you.

JLRMovieReviews St. Valentine's Day 1900. An all girls' school. Based on true facts, this film concerns a group of girls who are treated on a day off from studies to a picnic at Hanging Rock for culture and leisure. A female teacher and male custodian of the school are chaperones. But what begins as carefree frivolity quickly becomes disturbing. The group comes back with less in the party, because some of them went missing and couldn't be found due to a trek up the rock. Repurcussions of this are far reaching for the school and the school mistress, played to perfection by Rachel Roberts. This is the plot but it is far from the whole spectacle of this, the mystic of this doomed trip. Peter Weir, who also directed "Dead Poets Society" and "Gallipoli," creates a world of young, pure girls whose imaginations and hearts are full of expectations of the wild, tomorrow, boys and each other. They are ready for life and love, eager for discovery of new things. Even Ms. McCraw falls into the spell of the Hanging Rock. This is obviously a very sensual film, with the girls fresh and ripe as they are blossoming into womanhood - but enough of the allegorical euphemisms. Because there was very little known about the case and very little discovered as to what really happened, there are no answers given in this film. What Weir does do is capture the enigmatic character of the rock, atmosphere, the whole incident. What makes it even more tragic is the sadness of the girl, Sara, who is so connected to Miranda, one of the doomed girls, and how Sara talks of her childhood, the orphanage, and her brother, of whom she misses and of whom we see throughout the film. Rachel Roberts gives a chilling performance as the school mistress and how, as she loses her control of her life, she loses all her grip of her senses. If you like period pieces, I think I will you find this thought- provoking and entertaining, despite its very dramatic ending with no solid answers to anything. An uneasy and beautiful movie experience makes "Picnic at Hanging Rock" a movie essential.

MisterWhiplash You can read whatever you want into the disappearance of three girls and their watcher/headmistress while on holiday in 1900 Australia at a place called Hanging Rock. That is what makes Picnic at Hanging Rock intriguing but what also, I imagine, was frustrating for certain viewers coming out at the end. Americans generally want a mystery solved at the end of the day, whatever it is, and if it isn't, if things are left ambiguous or just left up in the air, it doesn't translate into ginormous box office or widespread attention (Fincher's Zodiac suffered that problem, though has been reevaluated as a landmark by many). With 'Hanging Rock', Peter Weir crafts a story from Joan Lindsey's novel that favors atmosphere and setting a particular, dreamy, almost-forgotten-but-in-the-wind style over story, but when you look at what plot is there it's actually compelling, especially for what comes after the main event is like watching a slow-moving, delicately staged car wreck, if that makes sense.We see this group of girls go to this Hanging Rock, and four of them going off on their own to explore (a Boticcelli reference happens too, from a picture book to seeing the girls walk away, there's more significance there that I can't point to but I know it's there). They climb and explore, with one girl sort of complaining and trailing behind (in the end, she'll be the one not to disappear), and when the midday malaise and doldrums hits, the girls just get up, walk slowly (or shot in slow-motion), and they're just... gone. Unlike Antonioni's L'Aventurra, which was also notable for a story where a character goes missing and the mystery is existential in nature, we do see these girls in the moment they vanish. But... what exactly happens? Many theories have been posited, from the basic (they fell down a hole, with only one of them getting out, the one who does, eventually, get rescued), to the more outlandish (aliens, which I wouldn't think far off given the mood). One thing is for sure, Weir doesn't make things very naturalistic in his direction, from simple things like when one of the girls opens a gate, turns her head as birds flap around in the sky and there are images transposed onto one another of her looking, the birds, the Hanging Rock itself. Or the music, which has an air at times of being very early-Man with its pan-flute sound, and then at other times sounds like an Italian horror movie, with the dread and over-the-top style that comes with that sound. But this is contrasted with realistic but restrained acting that's meant to reflect the period, especially from the head-master played by a very effective and cold Rachel Roberts.But this restrained feeling is something that bursts open, like one of the corsets one of the women or girls wears that just pops out and when emotion just over-flows. There's a great sense of how there is radical change in how the girls feel about things, since Miranda (Lambert) is one of the girls gone and the one who was kind of a leader in the group. When she exits, the girls are left with no one, and when the one girl returns it's like a pack of wolves snaps out. That is an extremely affecting scene, where things escalate very quickly but it doesn't seem outside the scope of reason. It helps that the setting is at a girl's preparatory school where everything has to be orderly and though not too harsh in discipline (we don't see anyone hit or punished in abuse) there is this sense of 'be straight, do what you're told, oh and don't forget to pay that tuition or you're out). And a lot of the struggle between what to do and what to say is seen in the character of Sarah, who can talk but is so shy she barely says a word (an orphan, of course), and this disappearance hits her the hardest of all.I loved seeing how little by little the school comes apart; it would be one thing to make the story just about the girls being gone, but the author and Weir as adapter know that's just not enough to sustain the narrative. There is no one real protagonist here - except maybe the Rock itself, which has its own ominous glow to it, one of the great rocks in movies alongside the monolith in 2001, full of its own grandiose, eerie enchantment - but Rachel Roberts comes close to playing something of a central figure, and its someone we kind of dread seeing, but has a lot of dimension. She may be stern and even cruel up to a point (certain things she says to Sarah are shocking to see), but she has a job to do which is giving these girls an education and put them forward to the world, regardless of any of their, um, emotions or, heaven forbid, sexual tension (which is there, if you look kind of close enough). Though there are other people on the side, like the supporting male characters who keep going back to search the Rock due to guilt and some unspoken words, it's Roberts show a lot of the time and she makes it work on the human level to balance the visual poetry and grace.Yes, Picnic at Hanging Rock is often poetic, and only once in a while becomes a little too much or, borderline, dated in its attempts to make something larger than the real world into the mythic or other-worldly. There are no easy answers to what happens to these girls, but there doesn't need to be given how the story unfolds, who does what to whom, and seeing the decay of an institution come undone ever so simply by the worst that can happen - the 'not knowing' even being worse than finding them dead, for example.

NateWatchesCoolMovies Peter Weir's mystery drama Picnic At Hanging Rock is the very definition of haunting. It has an intangible, dreamlike atmosphere that is at once beautiful and eerie. Nothing quite like it has crossed my cinematic vision up until this point, and can't believe it took me this long to check it out. The setting s 1900, Australia, a land still very much wild and untamed, although partway colonized by the British. In the hypnotizing opening scene, several angelic young girls in a remote boarding school cast longing, lingering looks out the windows at the horizon, and lyrically recite verses of poetry in the early morning air. They are a naive young bunch, because of the times, and their age. They embark with some of their teachers for a picnic at a local landmark, a labyrinthine plateau called Hanging Rock. Four of the girls become curious in the warmth of the afternoon sun and venture into the maze of stone formations high up on the hill. Three of them are never seen again. The fourth is traumatized by a terror she can remember nothing of. It's a mystery that crawls up your spine and grips you with a need to know, yet left unrequited and empty as the unforgiving outback. Cinematographer Russell Boyd paints gauzy pictures worthy of renaissance art, and navigates the spooky rock formation until we think we see things, feel things, and are within the grasp of answers that the film remains obstinate in giving. He even laid bridal lace over the lens in some scenes to enhance the ethereal tone. A huge part of what makes the film work is the knockout pan flute score by Zhamfir that piles on the atmosphere. A classic of true originality and daring exploration.