Review of Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) by Jack G — 12 Dec 2015

Picnic at Hanging Rock is, to put it mildly, a tease of a film, presenting a tantalizing first hour that is both tinged with the supernatural and beautifully dreamlike, a hyper-feminine study of burgeoning sexuality (a sequence involving girls wandering through crevasses is inspired) through soft pastels, gorgeous natural landscapes, and an emphasis on perception through a mirror motif and then refusing to provide definitive answers for the questions it initially raises.

Although it occasionally lapses into slightly more conventional territory, the concepts of colonial discord and clearly gay sexual undertones forcibly repressed due to the harsh social mores at play work well, these coupled with the gorgeous visuals elevating what could've been a standard costume drama to something more open for interpretation.