Picnic at Hanging Rock - 1975 * * * * *

Everything begins, and ends, at exactly the right time and place...

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a movie I will never be able to figure out or forget. It haunts, scares and totally encapsulates the dusty and humid atmosphere of Australia at the beginning of the 20th century. Time and time again I go back to this movie, and although I know for a fact that it had no truth in it whatsover I still believe that by watching it again and again I will be able to find the key to the mystery.

The story is fairly simple (this is no spoiler because it mentions this at the beginning of the film)- a group of school girls and their teachers go for a picnic to Hanging Rock to celebrate Valentine's Day in 1900. By the evening, three girls and a teacher have disappeared. You may think to yourself that while it is a dreadful thing to happen, it isn't particularly odd, people slip off rocks all the time and fall to their deaths. The thing is, the bodies are never found, and the one girl who didn't disappear but was the last to see them has no clue or knowledge of what happened. If this film had been set in the present day it may have shocked, but I doubt very much that it would have haunted it's viewers as it does here. There is something so eerie about the situation that you can never quite put your finger on that could only fit in with the 1900s. Joan Lindsay's novel caused a great stir soon after, for many people believed it to be a real film and were convinced that Lindsay knew the answer to the disappearance of the girls and teacher. However Lindsay has always maintained her answer that the story is just a story and all characters have come from her head instead of a police case.