Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975, Australia)

In Australian New Wave director Peter Weir's mystical, intriguing, and bewildering drama about sexual repression at an Australian private girls' school in the year 1900, when a group of schoolgirls disappeared into a mysterious rock formation (known as Hanging Rock) during an excursion on a hot Valentine’s Day afternoon - ultimately an unsolved and puzzling mystery:

• the pre-credits prologue stated: "On Saturday 14th February 1900 a party of schoolgirls from Appleyard College picnicked at Hanging Rock near Mt. Macedon in the state of Victoria. During the afternoon several members of the party disappeared without trace..."
• with a haunting voice-over, young blonde boarding schoolgirl Miranda St. Clare (Anne Lambert) spoke a line paraphrased from Edgar Allan Poe's A Dream within a Dream: "What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream" - the quote emphasized the film's themes of voyeurism, peeping, repressiveness, gazing, coming-of-age, and dream worlds
• on St. Valentine's Day in the year 1900, young nubile schoolgirls in the Victorian-Edwardian-era in Australia were dressed in their prim and constrictive white dresses and stockings; they were passing love notes to each other and preparing for an ill-fated journey to the geological wonders of Hanging Rock (near Woodend, Victoria) for a day's picnic - metaphorically, they would be entering into a primitive place of wild danger (similar to the passage into adult sexuality)
• the day's picnic outing to Hanging Rock was ominously described by strict authoritarian headmistress Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) (of Appleyard College, a finishing school) to the assembled girls (with hints of sexual, phallic danger and feminine crevices, openings and caves): "Once again let me remind you, the rock itself is extremely dangerous, and you are therefore forbidden any tomboy foolishness in the matter of exploration, even on the lower slopes. I also wish to remind you, the vicinity is reknowned for its venomous snakes and poisonous ants of various species. It is, however, a geological marvel, on which you will be required to write a brief essay on Monday morning. That is all. Have a pleasant day, and try to behave yourselves in a manner to bring credit to the College"

Pre-Picnic Warnings from Mrs. Appleyard

• the sensual cinematography of the day's journey began via a horse-drawn carriage driven by buggy-coachman driver Ben Hussey (Martin Vaughan), the girls' laughter, and a picnic conducted in the warm shade at Hanging Rock
• another ominous thing occurred on the day: the watches of both Mr. Hussey and the young mathematics teacher Miss Greta McCraw (Vivean Gray) stopped exactly at 12 noon - she remarked: "It stopped at twelve. It never stopped before. Must be something magnetic"

Math Teacher Miss Greta McCraw (Vivean Gray)

Miss McCraw's Watch Stopped at Twelve Noon

• four of the girls went exploring amongst the menacing outcroppings and phallic-shaped forbidden volcanic rock crevices, including pretty, angelic, ethereal and popular blonde Miranda (described by a teacher as "a Botticelli angel"), smart glasses-wearing Marion Quade (Jane Vallis), pretty Irma Leopold (Karen Robson), and whining, fat Edith (Christine Schuler)); during their time at Hanging Rock, they stripped away their layers of clothing before mysteriously disappearing in the foreign location

Four Girls Exploring Hanging Rock
Miranda	Irma
Marion	Edith

• lagging-behind them, Edith screamed when she witnessed something at the moment of the three other girls' disappearance as they walked behind a rock face; only Edith returned to the rest of the group, although hysterical, frightened, blubbering and unable to describe what had transpired
• the buggy-coach driver Ben Hussey and young French teacher/chaperone Mme. Dianne de Poitiers (Helen Morse) gave a late-night report to Mrs. Appleyard back at school about the three missing girls and math teacher/chaperone Miss McCraw: "Madam, something terrible has happened....Three of your young ladies and uh - Miss McCraw are missing - on the rock....Nobody knows what happened"; later, Edith claimed she saw Miss McCraw heading up the rock formation without her skirt

"Madam, something terrible has happened"

"Nobody knows what happened"

• the next day, a search party (with bloodhounds) at Hanging Rock resulted in Albert Crundall's (John Jarratt) discovery of an unconscious Irma; (Crundall had lunched at the site the day the girls vanished); when Irma awoke, she had no recollection of what had happened: ("I remember - nothing! Nothing! I remember nothing!"); she was found without her corset, shoes or stockings: ("Miss Irma's corset - it's missing!"); Doctor McKenzie (Jack Fegan) examined her for signs of molestation and reported: "She's quite intact" (i.e., an unbroken hymen)
• there was a series of other strange events surrounding the mysterious figure of Mrs. Appleyard, who was implicated in abusively threatening and punishing orphaned school girl Sara Waybourne (Margaret Nelson), Miranda's roommate, and was planning to throw her out of the school for her indebtedness: ("This is not a charitable institution"); Sara was also strapped to a wall to improve her posture; after the disappearance of the girls at Hanging Rock, concerned parents began to withdraw their children from the school, and Mrs. Appleyard began drinking
• in the school gymnasium scene, the provocatively scarlet-dressed Irma, who was saying goodbye to her classmates (just before being removed from the school by her parents), was mobbed by them for refusing to reveal the secrets at Hanging Rock that she had experienced
• Mrs. Appleyard asserted that Sara had been taken away and returned to the orphanage; however, the dead and bloodied body of Sara was shockingly discovered the next morning; her corpse was below her 2nd floor bedroom window and had crashed through the roof of the greenhouse - was it a possible suicide?; after the discovery, a stone-faced, unresponsive Mrs. Appleyard (in black mourning clothes) was thought to have hurriedly packed up and quickly departed before she could be questioned

Sara's Body in Greenhouse

Mrs. Appleyard in Mourning

Miranda's Last Wave

• afterwards, the final concluding narration described what happened to Mrs. Appleyard: ("The body of Mrs. Arthur Appleyard, Principal of Appleyard College, was found at the base of Hanging Rock on Friday, the 27th of March 1900. Although the exact circumstances of her death are not known, it is believed she fell while attempting to climb the rock. The search for the missing school girls and their governess continued spasmodically for the next few years without success. To this day, their disappearance remains a mystery")
• as the film concluded, there was the slow-motion return to the picnic scene with Miranda waving goodbye and the freeze-frame of her turning her head away from the camera - during the film's final fade-out