Andrew reviews the haunting mystery classic, Picnic at Hanging Rock.
It
goes without saying Australian film director Peter Weir is one of the great
directors of our generation. Known for Gallipoli, Witness, Dead Poets Society and
The Truman Show, the chameleonic and
gifted auteur was nominated six times for an Academy Award ranging from
writing, directing or producing. From
historical period pieces to action thrillers and introspective science fiction
oriented character studies, Weir’s closest competitor is arguably Ang Lee for
his own diverse approach to cinema. And
yet like Roman Polanski, Weir’s debatable finest hour arrived early in his
career with the haunting, beguiling and confounding period piece, Picnic at Hanging Rock. Based upon the novel by Joan Lindsay, the
exceedingly simple but relentlessly fascinating premise of an all girls’ private
school in 1900 Victoria, Australia whose tranquil existence is shaken by the
inexplicable disappearance of several schoolgirls and a teacher during a picnic
at the titular Hanging Rock remains one of the most impenetrable mysteries of
cinema since Alain Resnais’ Last Year at
Marienbad. Unlike Resnais’ 1961 in-flux
head scratcher, Picnic at Hanging Rock is
grounded in formal realism but tinged with fleeting, dreamlike moments with the
power of a hypnotic trance. With such
distinguished Australian classics as Wake
in Fright and Walkabout marking
the birth of mainstream Australian cinema, it’s curious to note the most
beloved film of 1970s Australian filmmaking is arguably Weir’s elegant, scary
and finally poignant mystery.
Aided
by breathtaking cinematography by Russell Boyd and a haunting soundtrack
consisting of Romanian panpipe pieces, samples of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and
Tchaikovsky, this is probably the only female-driven period drama with heavy
overtones of science fiction horror and an implacable otherworldliness. It has the setting of a classical costumed
theater piece but the tonality of an outer space thriller with many
implications but no concrete conclusions as to the girls’ whereabouts.
What’s more, like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey which this has a startling amount in common with, Picnic at Hanging Rock derives its power not from the answers it doesn’t provide but the questions it poses. Rather than solve the mystery, Picnic at Hanging Rock instead ruminates on the unresolved impact it has on the community, the school’s reputation and our own feelings about the matter. It’s also debatably a meditation on budding sexuality and romantic longing, with many close ups of the beautiful schoolgirls’ faces which are subverted by claustrophobic mountain rock surroundings. This is one of the rare films where the film’s sound design, brilliantly rendered in 5.1 stereophonic sound, is as integral to the pure experience as the images. Some of the most unsettling sequences consist almost entirely of low bass rumbles and soft, ambient wind, an effect lost on television only viewing.
What’s more, like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey which this has a startling amount in common with, Picnic at Hanging Rock derives its power not from the answers it doesn’t provide but the questions it poses. Rather than solve the mystery, Picnic at Hanging Rock instead ruminates on the unresolved impact it has on the community, the school’s reputation and our own feelings about the matter. It’s also debatably a meditation on budding sexuality and romantic longing, with many close ups of the beautiful schoolgirls’ faces which are subverted by claustrophobic mountain rock surroundings. This is one of the rare films where the film’s sound design, brilliantly rendered in 5.1 stereophonic sound, is as integral to the pure experience as the images. Some of the most unsettling sequences consist almost entirely of low bass rumbles and soft, ambient wind, an effect lost on television only viewing.
With
Hanging Rock, you can see the genesis
of Weir’s own thematic obsessions and penchant for science fiction as a means
to try and ponder our world’s still unsolved mysteries. Take for instance his 1993 drama Fearless about a man who has a near
death experience and finds the inexplicable psychological trauma to be
transformative to his personality and outlook on life. Then there’s The Truman Show where our hero finds himself living in a daily
sitcom before becoming a play on man’s connection with God himself and his own
place in the world. All three of these films
concern a surreal, life altering event and the cumulative impact it has on
everyone around them. What separates Hanging Rock from Weir’s subsequent dealings with the unknown is that even after everything, it still refuses to provide an answer. Where Fearless and The Truman Show had closure, Hanging Rock remains open to interpretation to this day and some viewers, much like the characters, will emerge frustration they did not get an explanation. As with the novel, Weir’s interests aren’t in answering the questions but in trying to understand the hypnotic pull such an unresolved inquiry presents to all who encounter it. Full of achingly sad beauty, fine performances across the board and astute direction from a young auteur who only four films into his career already attained the reputation of a master, Picnic at Hanging Rock is one of the greatest films ever made about the unknowable in a modern world we think we know and understand.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki