Gem From Down Under

The first great film of the Australian new wave, Weir's 1975 mystery appears at first to be a thin tale of schoolgirls disappearing at the turn of the century when their repressive teachers take them on an outing to a sacred aborigine site near Victoria.

On another level — the level on which all great movies happen — it's a richly suggestive experience that renews the possibilities of cinema at the same time that it challenges our perceptions of reality. Its use of a schoolgirl as visionary seems tongue-in-cheek at first, but it gradually gains resonance. With its expressive use of slow motion, precise compositions, gradual dissolves and lazy flute music, the movie is a voluptuous poem of nature and youthful yearning, as well as a teasing, mock-religious allegory, complete with suggestions of virgin sacrifice, sexual initiation, mystical deliverance from repression and ascension into heaven. Weir was attracted to the open-ended nature of the story "precisely because it didn't resolve itself . . . That's why I made the film." This version of Picnic at Hanging Rock is a "director's cut" that's actually seven minutes shorter than the original film, which clocked in at 115 minutes. Weir, whose latest American movie is The Truman Show, wanted to tighten the picture, and it hasn't been appreciably hurt by the cuts. What's most noticeable is how gorgeous Russell Boyd's cinematography now looks; did the movie look this wonderful when it was first shown?