Picnic at Hanging Rock

No doubt the phenomenal success of The Truman Show paved the way for the long-awaited re-release of one of home video's most wanted. Peter Weir's first major film was in the vanguard of films that put Australian cinema on the map in the mid-1970s. Based on the novel by Joan Lindsay, this mesmerizing and unsettling drama unfolds on Valentine's Day at the turn of the century, when students from a repressive girls' school and their chaperons attend an outing at Hanging Rock. Four students and a teacher wander off to explore the craggy and foreboding landscape (faces seem to glare ominously in the rock's surface). Only one returns. A week later, another student is found, but she has no memory of what happened to herself or the others. The theme of outsiders at odds with their environment and native cultures is one that reverberates throughout Weir's work (including Witness and Dead Poets Society). The decades have not diminished this 1975 film's enigmatic power. The final freeze frame will haunt you. This classic of world cinema is highly recommended. (K. Lee Benson)[Blu-ray/DVD Combo Review—July 1, 2014—Criterion, 107 min., PG, $39.95—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray and latest on DVD, 1975's Picnic at Hanging Rock features a great transfer and a DTS-HD 5.1 soundtrack on Blu-ray. Extras include director Peter Weir's 1971 short “Homesdale” (50 min.), the 2003 “making-of” featurette “Everything Begins and Ends” (31 min.), the 1975 on-set documentary “A Recollection…Hanging Rock 1900” (26 min.), an interview with Weir (25 min.), an introduction by film scholar David Thomson (10 min.), trailers, and a booklet featuring an essay by author Megan Abbot and an excerpt from film scholar Marek Haltof's 1996 book Peter Weir: When Cultures Collide. Also included is a new paperback edition of Joan Lindsay's source novel. Bottom line: an excellent extras package for this Aussie New Wave classic.]