Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Film Director: Peter Weir Screen writer : Cliff Green Producer: James and Hal McElroy Running time: 1hr 50mins Starring : Rachel Roberts, Dominic Guard, Helen Morse, Jacki Weaver, Anne Louise Lambert

"Disturbing 1870's period classic. Atmospheric drama about the inexplainable disappearance of schoolgirls and their teacher when thy go picnicking at a local beauty spot in Victoria in Australia on St.Valantines day. 1900."This film is interesting as the plot is told from the beginning through a shocking description of the real-life events that happened on that day, telling the audience of their disappearance, setting an eery tone to the whole film and a sense of foreboding for the audience who knows what is going to happen. The film stars poetic with everything white, the colour of purity and beauty creating the 'perfect setting and scene.' The storyline is basic about Victorian boarding school children who venture on an outing to 'Hanging rock' and vanish without a trace. The film is fueled with footage in the countryside on the rocks, using a vast range of intricate camera angles around the rocks, and having the foliage as the focus in the shots. The children and teachers all fall asleep in the sun and idealic surroundings during their outing, whilst three girls explore the rock. When it has been noted that they are missing a teacher follows then into oblivion and she too disappears. The film focuses on the disappearance of the girls and their teacher, as a young man, also on the rock at the same time searches all night to find the girls. The next day he is discovered with a cut on his head and has no recollection of what happened, but finds fabric from one of the dresses of the missing children, encouraging yet another search on the rock, where weirdly one out of the three girls is randomly found, she too was dazed and had no recollection of what happened on the rock. Critics claimed it an "exotic story which employs tranquil surrealism and lush cinematography to explore the interconnected relationships between nature, eroticism and repression." The film is continuously eerie, creating feelings of unease for the audience (I know as a critic of the film, it made me feel uneasy and on edge, which i found strange as i knew what was going to happen through the synopsis yet still i was drawn to finding out what was going to happen, almost willing the girls to be found!!!) It has an underlying sexual hysteria with Wier suggesting two girls to be lovers, and giving the film an underlying dream-like and romantic quality. Pre-raphellite imagery is referenced through a shot of the teacher reading a book and comparing a student, who ironically is the one who went missing to be a 'Botachelli angel...'The film evokes a sci-fi vibe as time is continually being shown, acting as a count-down to the doomed children, and the school decays and goes to ruin-resulting in a students suicide as a result from this incident. It ends as the film had promised- to be unsolved, which causes a higher level of tension throughout the film, yet the stunning imagery and atmosphere created by the amazing work of director Wier diverts the audience from this, yet still leaves them with the feeling an audience would gain from watching a horror film, jus in this case an artistic one!

After analysing this film it was apparent it would be inspirational to our film, it has the romantic and melancholic quality which we are required to engage with in our film. The filming is unique using the foliage as the frame for the filming, as through the focus being on this foreground, the impression is given out to the audience of them being part of a private moment. The delicate imagery of nature framing the film gives the filming a soft gentle quality, using shadows to create silhouettes and broken shapes through the filming.

This is what makes this film a prime example of melancholy, as it has an underlying miserable tone, yet is masked with beauty and romance through the stunning scenery and the filming style to create this melancholic atmosphere. The stills below demonstrate the sheer range of camera angles and filming that Wier creates, he gives the rocks a persona and an identity though intimate intrusive filming of it form every angle possible. He films the girls from below the rocks, emphasising the grandeur-and with that the danger and threat of the rocks looming over the girls, from above and through cracks, gaps in between the rocks, and following the girls from behind as they venture on the rocks. The film is silent in places using natural sounds to generate a specific atmosphere for the setting.


The filming experiments with depth of field and overlapping images as the stills show, the rock is opaque and the girls is moving creating this blurred effect on camera, this is a constant reminded of the rock and the three girls as they merge into one- the victim of 'Hanging rock.' This is a perfect example of the effects we wish to generate on camera, making this clever filming and useful footage.The scene of the girl turning away from the camera at the end of the film gives a feeling of confusing reality, did she really disappear?? or is it just masterful filming??