Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Calificación de los usuarios:

7.7/10   

Director:

Peter Weir

Escritores:

Joan Lindsay (novel)
Cliff Green (screenplay)

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

2 febrero 1979 (USA)

Género:

Drama | Misterio

Frase comercial:

Australia's First International Hit! [Video Australia]

Plot:

A story about the disappearance of several Appleyard College students, and a teacher, from Hanging Rock.

Plot Keywords:

Hanging Rock | Teacher | Hanging | Valentine's Day | 1900s

Premios:

Won BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 win & 4 nominations

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Death and the Maidens

Reparto

Rachel Roberts	...	Mrs. Appleyard
Vivean Gray	...	Miss McCraw
Helen Morse	...	Mlle. de Poitiers
Kirsty Child	...	Miss Lumley
Tony Llewellyn-Jones	...	Tom (as Anthony Llewellyn-Jones)
Jacki Weaver	...	Minnie
Frank Gunnell	...	Mr. Whitehead
Anne-Louise Lambert	...	Miranda (as Anne Lambert)
Karen Robson	...	Irma
Jane Vallis	...	Marion
Christine Schuler	...	Edith
Margaret Nelson	...	Sara
Ingrid Mason	...	Rosamund
Jenny Lovell	...	Blanche
Janet Murray	...	Juliana

También conocida como:

El enigma en las Rocas Colgantes (Chile) [es]
Picnic en Hanging Rock (Spain) [es]

Duración:

115 min | Australia:107 min (1998 director's cut)

País:

Australia

Idioma:

Inglés | Francés

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Relación de Aspecto:

1.66 : 1

Sonido:

Mono

Clasificación:

Brazil:12 | Iceland:L | Netherlands:12 | Sweden:11 | USA:TV-PG (cable rating) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Norway:11 | UK:PG (video rating) | USA:PG | West Germany:12 | UK:A | Australia:G | Spain:T | Spain:X | Singapore:PG

Locaciones de Filmación:

Adelaide Hills, South Australia, Australia

Compañía:

Australian Film Commission, The

Trivialidades:

Christine Schuler, who played Edith, had her entire voice dubbed over by actress Barbara Llewellyn.

Errores:

Anacronismos: As the drag pulls out of Woodend, power poles are seen to the left of the screen, also, a television antenna is also seen on the roof of a house in the same scene.

Citas:

Marion: A surprising number of human beings are without purpose, though it is probable that they are performing some function unknown to themselves.

Conexiones de Película:

Apareció en "20 to 1: Great Aussie Movies (#3.5)" (2006)

Banda de Sonido:

Eine kleine Nachtmusik

Death and the Maidens

Even though this has been described as a film about sexual repression (and Peter Weir may have thought he was making such a film), I don't think it is--rather, it is a celebration of the dreamy, self contained sexuality (or rather pre-sexuality) of young adolescent girls just before they seriously turn their attention to men. Sure, they may be living in a society straitjacketed by Victorian mores, but the girls really don't seem to be the unhappier for this, non withstanding the earthy maid's comments that she feels sorry for them. Miranda and her friends seem completely content and at ease in their languid, hothousey world of poetry, pink and white bedrooms, and mutual crushes (I was reminded of the similarly dreamy, self contained little universe of the sisters in "The Virgin Suicides--another film that is supposedly about repression). During the noon day nap at Hanging Rock, the girls, heads resting in one another's laps, are in a state very much resembling post coital bliss--far from seeming repressed, they are among the most content women I've ever seen on screen. It is quite arguable that Victorian morality had something to do with their sexuality turning inward like this, but all this does is lend credence to the truism that repression intensifies sexuality--which may explain the lingering fascination the Victorian era has for the modern age, and why one of its most striking symbols of its oppressiveness--the corset--is also very erotically charged. The girls' disappearance into the eerie black land form (that seems to have faces at times, bringing to mind fairy tales about trolls who steal golden haired children) suggests that at in their present state they are so contented that anything else life might hold for them could only be a letdown, that only whatever dark force (death? nothingness?) is haunting Hanging Rock could possibly be a worthy enough lover for these girls who are already so supremely self fulfilled.

There are, unfortunately, aspects of this film that don't work, or rather jar with the elements discussed above, the most prominent of these being the Dickensian subplot of the persecuted orphaned pupil Sarah. The actress herself is affecting in her part and her boyish beauty contrasts well with Miranda's ethereal femininity (she looks like a young Renaissance prince at times), but her story really belongs in another movie because at heart "Picnic at Hanging Rock" is more Gothic than socially conscious.

Maybe Weir really was aiming to make a movie about the evils of sexual repression, class inequality or even colonization, but such possible themes are blown away by the languid, ethereal images of the young adolescent girls at the beginning of the film, floating contentedly through their hours like clusters of Monet lilies.