Another review

Peter Weir, of course, is purely a filmmaker. The director of "The Truman Show" and such previous delights as "Gallipoli," "Witness" and "Dead Poets Society," he excels at finding wordless means to depict ineffable notions and emotions.

His earliest major work, 1975's Picnic at Hanging Rock, has been unavailable on video or screen for many years. This new director's cut demonstrates how a simple story can turn shivery and beguiling in the hands of a master.

The film concerns the disappearance of three schoolgirls and their teacher on an outing in Australia, circa 1900. A half-dozen or so people in the small community of whites in the area have their lives forever altered by the event: the schoolmistress (Rachel Roberts), a poetical fellow student (Margaret Nelson) and a young Englishman who saw the girls hiking away (Dominic Guard) among them.