Picnic at Hanging Rock, 1975
This is an Australian mystery movie of director Peter Weir. This was adapted from a 1967 novel by Cliff Green of the similar name by Mss. Joan Lindsay.
Cast Lists
Rachel Roberts acted as Mrs Appleyard
Wyn Roberts acted as Sgt Bumpher
Kay Taylor acted as Mrs Bumpher
Martin Vaughan acted as Ben Hussey
Kirsty Child acted as Miss Lumley
Olga Dickie acted as Mrs Fitzhubert
Dominic Guard acted as Michael Fitzhubert
Frank Gunnell acted as Mr Whitehead
Tony Llewellyn-Jones acted as Tom
Jenny Lovell acted as Blanche
Helen Morse acted as Ms. Mlle. de Poitiers
Karen Robson acted as Irma Leopold
Christine Schuler acted as Edith Horton
Jacki Weaver acted as Minnie
Jane Vallis acted as Marion Quade
Peter Collingwood acted as Col. Fitzhubert
John Fegan as Doc. McKenzie
Vivean Gray acted as Miss McCraw
John Jarratt acted as Albert Crundall
Anne-Louise Lambert acted as Mr. Miranda St. Clare
Margaret Nelson acted as Sara Waybourne
Garry McDonald acted as Const. Jones
Plot
At the Appleyard College, the private school for girls near the Woodend town in Victoria, Australia, the students were getting ready for a Valentine’s Day morning in the year 1900. Sara, an orphan, a student, has a deep linked with the Miranda, the elder roommate. Mrs Appleyard, a school’s austere headmistress, has arranged the picnic to the local geological formation called as the Hanging Rock, attended by a peculiar mathematics professor Ms. Greta McCraw and with a young French professor, Mademoiselle de Poitiers. Sara and the jittery teacher Ms. Lumley was kept by Mrs. Appleyard at the college.
This Buggy operator Mr. Ben Hussey takes the crowd to the Hanging Rock in mid-afternoon, wherein they had a picnic at the base. Mr. Hussey noted his pocket watch had stopped when it is 12, as had Miss McCraw’s. And with consent from Ms. Mlle. de Poitiers, The classmates Marion, Irma, Edith and Melinda decided to explore the Hanging Rock. The team was soon after observed passing the creek by Michael Fitzhubert, the young Englishman, along with his friend, Albert, and the Fitzhubert family coachman.
After discovering the rock in a while, Marion, Irma and Miranda, removed their stockings and shoes. Close by the summit, seemingly in the influence of the unseen force, the 4 fall asleep after collapsing and next to the monolith. Everybody at a picnic spot was apparently asleep too, except for Ms. McCraw who glances at the geometry textbook and then up at a Rock. The four awakened synchronously and when in the trance, all except for Edith move up to a crevice. Witnessing it, Edith screamed and went down afraid to the Rock.
Writer’s Opinion
The strange is always a little bit mystifying and terrifying, but in the fictional tale, it is still adorable to have a satisfying ending to any story or riddle mixing reason with the supernatural. Here it has a dreamlike exercise which weaves the tale of schoolgirls of Victorian, circa 1900, who disappeared after the school picnic on the sunny day near by the Hanging Rock.
That is the tale in the nutshell. Before they disappeared without explanation, the girls were seen leading instead of repressed lives without getting to know of any of them. Their disappearance is a thing that the entire tale seemed to be structured toward, because there is the mystery and the air of dread about the Hanging Rock that will make a viewer feel the end will reveal a thing–but it never revealed. The ambiguity stays right up until its final moment.
Summing up: Atmospheric, moody, but rather hollow in the hub and some may simply find it the pretentious bore.
