Australian Film Commission, 1975
starring: Rachel Roberts, Vivean Gray, Anne-Louise Lambert
directed by: Peter Weir

the plot: On Valentine’s Day, 1900, a group of Australian school girls lace up each other’s corsets and set out for a picnic at spooky Hanging Rock. Three students and a teacher disappear. Days later, after an exhaustive search, several (but not all) turn up, incoherent and unable to explain what happened.

why it’s good: This is a mystery so frightening in its implications that it qualifies as horror, and has been included in many critical anthologies of the genre. “Haunting” is a term frequently beaten to death, but it’s here in spades—the surreal lunar landscapes of the Outback, the Stonehenge/pagan feel evoked by the formations of Victoria’s actual Hanging Rock, and the languid pace of life at the girls’ school, with its inevitable sexual tension just beneath its sweaty surface. An inexplicable event has occurred that no one can explain, and those in positions of authority are desperately scrambling to make some sense of the nonsensical. Were the virginal girls defiled on a Victorian-era Valentine’s Day? Are reckless adolescents pulling a fast one? Is there something truly Satanic (or at least supernatural) at work here? This film infuriated literalist American distributors who hate loose ends and unanswered questions (the rest of the world seemed just fine with the film; perhaps that’s why we’re the only superpower). This is High Gothic, beautifully photographed, with the sadly doomed Rachel Roberts in another superlative performance. As in Nicolas Roeg’s “Walkabout” (1971), the Australian landscape itself serves as a character, both inspiring and menacing.

why you should own it: Peter Weir had directed one undistinguished film when he helmed “Picnic at Hanging Rock” at age 31. Weir does not usually write his own material (this film is based on a novel by Joan Lindsay), but possesses an uncanny grasp of the intentions of his chosen scripts—he magnificently brought to the screen the written blueprints of “Gallipoli” (1981), “The Year of Living Dangerously” (1982), “Witness” (1985), and “Master and Commander” (2003). He was as much at the forefront of the Australian New Wave as Fassbinder was of the concurrent German one. The book and film suggest that this inexplicable event was inspired by a true story—alas, they were not. The lovely Criterion DVD includes the director’s cut (Weir actually trimmed seven minutes), a fine new transfer, and the theatrical trailer.