| | Picnic At Hanging Rock DVD (3 Customer Reviews)
| Category | Criterion Collection DVDs, Dramas Movies, Thriller Videos, Mystery, Suspense, Recommended, Essential Cinema, Psychic Forces, Schoolgirls | | Starring | Rachel Roberts, Anne Louise Lambert, Dominic Guard, Helen Morse, Jacki Weaver | | Director | Peter Weir | | Director of Photography | Russell Boyd | | Editor | Max Lemon | | Producer | James McElroy, Hal McElroy | | Production Designer | David Copping | | Screenwriter | Cliff Green |
DVD Feature film. Dir. by Peter Weir. Widescreen. Dir.'s cu t. New Dolby stereo soundtrk. Rated PG. 107 min. W/ theatri cal trailer. Weir's (TRUMAN SHOW, DEAD POETS SOCIETY) exotic story employs tranquil surrealism and lush cinematography to explore the interconnected relationships between nature, eroticism and repression. While out climbing rocks, three girls from a posh finishing school vanish without a trace. In an attempt to find them, a geometry teacher climbs the rock and follows them into oblivion. A young man who has seen the teacher running up the mountain in a pair of bloomers, decides to spend the night on the rock, in hopes of finding the girls. But in the morning he is discovered with a wound on his head and no recollection of what happened. And when one of the girls later returns she's also wounded and dazed. A truly alluring, enigmatic film. When a group of schoolgirls from an elite Victorian finishing school embark on a Valentine's 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. Theatrical Release: February 2, 1979. Picnic At Hanging Rock Reviews: "[A] mysterious, subtle and beautifully shot film....IT is also eerie and unsettling, its dreamlike quality heightened by the haunting music..."-- Geoffrey Macnab, Sight and Sound "...[It] wears the brilliant obscurity of a Dickinson poem and the suggestive force of a Magritte painting....[Offers] just the perfect beauty of its puzzle..." -- Rating: A
-- Troy Patterson, Entertainment Weekly "...A hypnotic spell....A movie that is both spooky and sexy."
-- Vincent Canby, New York Times "...Exquisite and seductive....Cinema at its most evocative....PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK remains a gorgeous-looking, superbly wrought cinema..."
-- Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times "...Swaddling the story in an atmosphere of eerie mysticism, Weir shuts out logic and reason in favour of cloaking the tale in swooning mysticism..."
-- Jonathan Crocker, Total Film Picnic At Hanging Rock | List Price | $29.95 (You save $6.56) | | Studio | Criterion Collection | | Orig Year | 1975 | | DVD Encoding | Region 1 | | All Time Sales Rank |  9277  | | CD Universe Part number | 1235650 | | Catalog number | 90 | | Discs | 1 | | Release Date | Nov 03, 1998 | | Rating | PG (MPAA) | | Running Time | 107 Minutes | | Additional Info | Widescreen | | Movie Details | Color; Dolby Surround AC-3 Sound; Dolby Noise Reduction; Digitally Re-Mastered; Digital Sound; Stereo Sound; Director's Cut; Widescreen; Criterion Collection |
Picnic At Hanging Rock Movie Review Average Rating: (3.7 out of 5 stars)   A Gem for the Peter Weir Enthusiast
Peter Weir's _Picnic at Hanging Rock_, the by turns naturalistic and mystical film that introduced a talented Austrailian to mainstream American audiences, is ultimately a gem only for the director's enthusiasts. The first thirty minutes of this film are breathtaking - visually, musically, thematically - but unfortunately the mystery of the piece (its best feature) is diminished by the remainder which, as it investigates probable causes for the girls' disappearance, mires us in peripheral and, oftentimes, less interesting material. Worth a rent, but only diehards will want to purchase. The Criterion DVD is excellent for those who are so inclined.
Submitted by a reviewer (Madison, MS, USA)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No 1 of 2 found this helpful.
 The Power of Hanging Rock
Peter Weirs' film captures the flavour of the novel very well. The oppressive Victorian summer heat, the stillness, the European rituals stamped across a misunderstood landscape. Approaching Hanging Rock from any direction still gives most visitors a rush: to climb it invites an anxious frisson. The print is excellent, resembling the southern light caught by contempary painters. Almost everyone in Oz knows the myth of Hanging Rock. But remember, the story is an invention- the Rock is real.
Submitted by David Martin (Mt. Martha, Australia)
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Lingering enigma
Many of us in the 21st century seem to have forgotten the power of hysteria--both in the popular mind and the popular press. We encounter it today, but seem willing to explain it away...either with scientific fact or freudian logic. Not so for young women of the late 19th Century, for whom just the utterance of the events at "Hanging Rock" spelled scandal. I can't decide for whom I had the most sympathy: the girl who returns or the school mistress, on the brink of madness.
Submitted by a reviewer (Shelbyville, TN)
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Picnic At Hanging Rock DVD Region 1
Keep Case
Director's Cut
Letterbox -
1.66
Audio:
(unspecified) - English
Subtitles - English - SDH
Additional Release Material:
Trailers: Original Theatrical Trailer
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