The Serpent in the Garden: “Picnic at Hanging Rock”

Many scholars agree that the Australian film industry came of age in 1975, when native Aussie Peter Weir directed Picnic at Hanging Rock. This complex psychological thriller—filmed in South Australia with state funds and an Australian cast—became an international success story, though its ambiguity was not to every taste. On the strength of this film and such other Australian projects as Gallipoli (1981), Weir carved out a major career in Hollywood, starting with Witness and including such distinctive features as Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Truman Show (1998)

 From the film’s first few moments, it’s clear that Weir is brilliant at giving a visual flair to his stories. This one, based on a popular Australian novel that hints that the story it tells is true, begins on the morning of Valentine’s Day in the year 1900. We’re in the countryside, at a school for well-bred young ladies, most of whom are thrilled to be going on a rare outing to a natural landmark a few hours away. For the occasion, all are decked out in pristine white dresses (it’s summer in Australia) along with black stockings and shoes. They’ve let down their hair, and for once have been allowed to remove their little white gloves once they near their destination.

 It's a prim group, apparently, though there are hints from the start that some of them are chafing a bit at all the restrictions placed on them by their strict headmistress and her faculty. They may be tightly corseted beneath their summer frocks but their emotions are running wild and free, as we see when they exchange surprisingly passionate Valentine messages. Once they arrive at the distinctive volcanic outcropping known as Hanging Rock, they seem to let down their guard, as do their official chaperones. They’ve been warned not to try to climb the jagged rock formation because of the many dangers it presents, including insects and poisonous snakes. And yet a few of them do set off to explore their surroundings . . . and several are never heard from again. These include Miranda—blonde and pretty—who has been singled out early on as someone sure of her powers and perhaps eager to go her own way. (I kept wondering if her name was chosen in reference to the heroine of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, someone excited to discover for herself a “brave new world.”)  

 The mystery of the girls’ disappearance is never solved by the filmmakers, leaving some critics and audiences aghast. Instead the focus is on the reactions of those left behind, survivors who feel pain for a whole host of reasons. There are the missing girls’ classmates, of course, but also the school’s imperious headmistress and her staff, as well as the local policemen who’ve helped with the search and a visiting English gentleman who’d eyed the pretty young ladies before they went missing and becomes almost unhinged after their disappearance. The camera picks up the anguish of all of these folk, but also lingers enticingly on the natural world that stands in such marked contrast to the “civilized” strictures of the upper-class Aussies of that era. We see those snakes, those insects, those dangerous critters that the girls had been warned to avoid. But we see beautiful creatures too, like a majestic swan who glides through the film from time to time, seeming to suggest both purity and proud independence.  

 Picnic at Hanging Rock is a frustrating film for those who like their mysteries solved, but it will haunt me for a long time.