Picnic Basket Cases

Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1979) is one of those movies that I always knew I should watch. We just decided to watch it now randomly. And randomly is kind of how we watched.

It’s set in Victorian Australia, at a girl’s boarding school. Today is special, we learn. It’s Valentine’s Day and the girls are all giving each other cards and poems. They are also excited because they are going on a picnic at Hanging Rock, a local geographical landmark. The school is full of beautiful young woman flitting about in white frocks, and honestly, I didn’t really distinguish amongst them. One was recalcitrant - she wouldn’t copy poetry, but wrote her own. She would not be allowed to join the picnic. One is chubby and a bit whiny. There is also a young French teacher that some of the girls may or may not be pashing on.

And so it goes. The girls take a horse cart out to the rock. An older English couple and their young son and servant notice the girls, but don’t really speak with them. Everyone eats and becomes drowsy. A few of the girls climb the rocks to take measurements. It is all rather disconnected and dreamlike. The whiny girl girl goes along, but when the other climbers remove their shoes, and maybe their frocks and slip off into the cracks and crags of the summit, she stays behind. These girls never come back.

The whiny girl can’t really explain what happened. The English boy and his servant search. The servant talks about the time he and his sister were in the orphanage, and how he has missed her since they were separated. The recalcitrant girl talks about how she misses her brother from when they were in the orphanage - but they never meet. One girl is found, but she is too hysterical to tell anything. There are suicides. The mystery is never solved.

It’s a beautiful, spooky, dreamy movie. There might be mysteries that have solutions within, like the two orphans, but I wasn’t studying it looking for answers - just taking it in. Its beauty is slightly marred by the low budget, giving it a made-for-tv look sometimes. But what does that even mean, in these days of prestige tv. But some simple gauze over the lens can be quite effective.

In conclusion, I’ve been getting Peter Weir mixed up with Nicholas Roeg, who also makes beautiful, mysterious movies. I think I’ve got them straight now.