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Picnic at Hanging Rock

1975

Peter Weir

Rachel Roberts, Vivean Gray, Helen Morse, Kirsty Child ...

6.8

4,803

Mystery. Drama When a group of schoolgirls from an elite Victorian finishing school embark on a Valentines day excursion to an unusual outcropping of volcanic rock, four members of the party are drawn towards the summit, where they experience powerful forces of time, nature, and eroticism, and vanish into thin air. This meticulously crafted Australian film displays a remarkable sense of eerie foreboding and lush surrealist sensibility, which have earned it a rabid cult following. [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Variety	"Visually it probably is one of the most beautiful pix ever seen, with Aussie flora and fauna and wonderful blue skies."	POS
United States	Vincent Canby The New York Times	"Though, 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' has immense feeling for an interest in the Australian landscape, it is anything but a picturesque or provincial film (...) The result is a movie that is both spooky and sexy."	POS
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"A movie that creates a specific place in your mind; free of plot, lacking any final explanation, it exists as an experience (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Dave Kehr Chicago Reader	"Spottily effective mood piece from Australia (...) Peter Weir struggles to create an atmosphere of mystical languor (...) The deenergized drama leads only to anticlimax"	NEU
United Kingdom	Ian Nathan Empire	"A fascinating film that is by turns fascinating and mysterious (...) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Chris Cabin Slant	"The power of nature is quiet but all-consuming in Peter Weir’s 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' (...) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Richard Schickel Time	"This horrific tale is told with marvelous shadowy indirection and delicate lyricism."	POS
United Kingdom	Chris Petit Time Out	"Nothing is satisfactorily resolved because tensions remain unexplored (...) The result is little more than a discreetly artistic horror film."	NEU
Australia	Andrew L. Urban Urbancinefile	"Subdued but intense, the film's mood, impeccably aided by Judy Dorsman's wonderful costumes, seeps into our subconscious"	POS
United States	Marjorie Baumgarten Austin Chronicle	"[Peter Weir] made this unsettling, atmospheric film early in his career, and it is still one of his most successful projects to date."	POS
United States	Peter Stack SFGATE	"One of the most hauntingly beautiful mysteries ever created on film (...) The delicate arts of nuance and suggestion (...) are the all-important ingredients of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'."	POS

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