This lyrical import from director Peter Weir may be a thriller, but it essentially runs on anti-suspense. Set in 1900 in Weir’s native Australia, the film follows a field trip taken by boarding-school girls to the title locale, an isolated, desolate outcropping where the rock formations look like melting faces. When three of the students and a teacher disappear without a trace, the survivors – and nearly the whole nation – devolve into hysteria. Picnic at Hanging Rock proceeds with a series of clues, but it isn’t really interested in the answer they might lead to. Instead Weir, working from the 1967 novel by Joan Leslie, sets out to evoke a mood: one of mystery, wonder and burgeoning sexuality. He succeeds on that count – the girls themselves, in their white Victorian gowns, look like angels presiding over some sort of purgatory – even if it means sacrificing a plot with a traditional sense of payoff.
