Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) : A haunting and atmospheric film about the aftermath of the mystery.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) still has a haunting atmosphere to it. The film takes the after affect of the mystery and represents its emotional toll on the characters involved. Based on the classic novel by Joan Lindsay It tells the story of a group of college students from a private college called Appleyard where they plan to go on a picnic trip to “Hanging Rock” a famous tourist spot. But after a few missing girls and a teacher, a tragic aftermath takes place in the community.

It is said the novel was based on a real tragic incident, but the author sort of dismisses this and says some are fictitious and some are real. she is quoted saying "Well, it was written as a mystery, and it remains a mystery. If you can draw your own conclusions, that's fine, but I don't think that it matters. I wrote that book as a sort of atmosphere of a place, and it was like dropping a stone into the water. 

This quote could be attributed to the film itself because the crux of the film is about the ripple effect of the mystery rather than the mystery itself. This is what makes the film so fresh and haunting even today. We as an audience feel the fear of the girls and look from their perspective.

The technical aspects help bring in the dread of atmosphere where the cinematography of Russell Boyed captures the environment of the height and uneasiness of the rock and its many surroundings of animals and plants like lizards, plants, birds, insects that occupy the place. The introduction of the film sets up the characters with the activities of the girls and an eerie music of a windpipe playing in the background. It sets the tone of the film. The mindset of the university is a mindset of discipline and strictness. The one you can see during conservative aspects of a private institution of the 1900s. Ms Appleyard the principle herself being strict in nature rejects a rebellious student from going to the trip so she stays back.

There are various characters in the film, but Peter Wier tries to create a diminishing affect of character development or arcs as the purpose of the movie was to find ways to make us dissociated with the solution. This becomes apparent as he even quotes during an interview   "We worked very hard at creating a hallucinatory, mesmeric rhythm, so that you lost awareness of facts, you stopped adding things up, and got into this enclosed atmosphere. I did everything in my power to hypnotize the audience away from the possibility of solutions.''

It leaves us to many interpretations like there are two male characters that are introduced early on the film. Both present at hanging rock when the girls arrive for their trip. Now we see a fantastic shot of these two boys gazing at the four girls when they try to cross a tree log to go nearer to the heights of the monolith and the interpretation of one boy is an a sexual teasing while the other is gazing in their beauty. They later are shown in helping in finding them but return with no success. Now we can also imagine a situation where if these two have anything to do with the disappearance of the girls? because we get a scene where one of the missing girls return and she claims that one of the teachers was seen running frantically in her underwear. Now what can this entail? A sexual crime? There were also some older couples present during that picnic. Are they suspects? All these questions are never really answered we even get police characters but there is no procedural investigation. It all lies in the thick impenetrable insinuation of the audience which leads to the core of the film and if it was anything other than this than the film could falter leaving for another ordinary mystery.

I really liked the structure of the film with its great music and ambience and Victorian style clothing. Peter Wier creates a great piece of film that has us hooked with its lucid dreamy like state and atmosphere. Its take on the mystery genre and the wonderful visuals leaves an aftertaste with it.