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Designing The Movies: PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975) – New 4K Restoration!
Runtime: 115 mins | Release Year: 1975 | Rating: PG | Genre(s): Drama, Mystery
Production Country: Australia | Original Language: English
In the early 1900s, Miranda attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine’s Day, the school’s typically strict headmistress treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It’s not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared mysteriously.
Showtimes
‣ Thursday February 06th @ 06:45 PM
50th Anniversary Screening! 4K Restoration!
New 4K restoration of the eerie Australian gothic!
“What we see and what we seem are but a dream—a dream within a dream.”
In this atmospheric tale, students at a girls’ boarding school mysteriously vanish with their chaperone while on a Valentine’s Day picnic. Is it a simple tragedy, or the fatal power of the elemental? Based on the beguiling novel by Joan Lindsay, Peter Weir’s gauzy and inscrutable 1975 landmark of the Australian new wave has influenced culture from Twin Peaks to The Blair Witch Project and The Leftovers —and perhaps most famously, Sofia Coppola’s breakout debut The Virgin Suicides.
The petticoats, ruffles, and delicate embroidery would be peak sad girl aesthetics all on their own, but they become hypnotic under hyper-feminine, romanticist effect of Russell Boyd’s dreamlike BAFTA and Saturn award-winning cinematography. Add to that Romanian folk musician Georghe Zamfir’s eerie pan flute and Weir’s study of girlhood, tragedy and its aftermath becomes as disquieting as it is ethereal. The unnerving central mystery resists resolution, forever beyond our grasp.
Presented with an introduction by series host Nathalie Atkinson.
Part of the Designing the Movies series!
Cast/Crew Info
Director: Peter Weir | Cast: Rachel Roberts, Vivean Gray, Helen Morse, Kirsty Child, Tony Llewellyn-Jones