Picnic At Hanging Rock

On St Valentine's Day in 1900 a party of schoolgirls enjoys a day at Hanging Rock, a local beauty spot. But something odd is at work: clocks stop at midday and three girls vanish. Dingo dogs, extraterrestrials, kidnappers or what? In this psychological take on the mystery, director Peter Weir leaves clues hanging in the air like a glistening spider's web, hears celestial choirs and thrumming insects — he hasn't the foggiest, but he adores ambiguity, mysticism and metaphor. It's a very sexy picture, which stares an enigma straight in the eye and, in the process, proved to the world that the new Australian cinema was capable of making films other than those that featured gnarled and drunken sheep-shearers. There are fine performances from Rachel Roberts, Helen Morse and Dominic Guard, which, with the outstanding location work, add up to a decidedly class act.

A film that ventures successfully into the mystic and bravely offers no answer to its central puzzle, just a question that continues to haunt the mind. Whether you want to regard it as a parable of sexual awakening or of colonial repression, it successful