Picnic at Hanging Rock

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a 1975 Australian mystery film produced by Hal and Jim McElroy, directed by Peter Weir, and starring Rachel Roberts, Dominic Guard, Helen Morse, Vivean Gray and Jacki Weaver. It was adapted by Cliff Green from the 1967 novel of the same name by Joan Lindsay. The plot involves the disappearance of several schoolgirls and their teacher during a picnic at Hanging Rock, Victoria on Valentine's Day in 1900, and the subsequent effect on the local community. Picnic at Hanging Rock was a commercial and critical success, and helped draw international attention to the then-emerging Australian New Wave of cinema. Plot At Appleyard College, a girls' private school near the town of Woodend in Victoria, Australia, students are getting ready on the morning of Valentine's Day, 1900. One student, an orphan named Sara, has a deep connection with her elder roommate Miranda. The school's austere headmistress, Mrs Appleyard, has arranged a picnic to a local geological formation known as Hanging Rock, accompanied by the peculiar mathematics teacher Miss Greta McCraw and the young French teacher Mademoiselle de Poitiers. Mrs Appleyard keeps Sara and jittery teacher Miss Lumley at the college. Carriage operator Ben Hussey gets the group to Hanging Rock by mid-afternoon, where they picnic at its base. Mr Hussey notes his pocket watch has stopped at the stroke of 12, as has Miss McCraw's. With permission from Mlle. de Poitiers, Miranda and classmates Marion, Irma, and Edith decide to explore Hanging Rock. The group is soon after observed crossing a creek by a young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert, along with Albert, his friend and coachman for the Fitzhubert family.