Between Nature and Temptation

Published in Palatinate, No.721, November 2010

A Breathtaking Union of the Aesthetic and the Mysterious

IT is perhaps appropriate that The Truman Show (1998), with all its originality of plot and infectious surrealism, should have come from director Peter Weir, since his similarly enigmatic Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) effectively sounded the birth pangs of the Australian blockbuster.

Set on St Valentine’s Day 1900, Picnic charts the visit made by a group of girls from the exclusive Appleyard College to the geological marvel of the title. Some of the party, though, including mathematics teacher Miss McCraw (Vivean Gray), fail to return, setting in motion the mystery that ensues. A sense of mystery, though, is pervasive within Picnic, and revolves as much around the College as the Rock. The opening narration of Poe’s “What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream”, accompanied by the declarative tone of Gheorghe Zamfir’s haunting panpipe score, invokes from the outset a sense of wonder, breathing curiosity even into images of the girls’ everyday interactions and rituals. Whether they be reading from Shakespeare or dressing for the day, the visual is underscored by a purportedly benign abstraction that deftly fuels audience anticipation.

The girls’ visit to the Rock is prefaced by words of advice from the College Principal, Mrs Appleyard (Rachel Roberts), who awakens them to the opportunity for exploration that must be tempered by a social ambassadorship to “…bring credit to the College”. In the early stages of the film, Mrs Appleyard’s leadership of her namesake institution denotes a liberal matriarchy that affords the pupils comparative freedom, accompanied by an abject conservatism emblematic of Victoriana and the pride then endemic in Empire.

En route to the Rock, Miss McCraw shares little of the girls’ enthusiasm for their imminent adventure, remarking dolefully “This we do for pleasure, so that we may shortly be at the mercy of venomous snakes and poisonous ants – how foolish can human creatures be?”. Yet not even her sobering analysis of that potential danger can quell an appetite for temporary escape from the inevitably rather staid etiquette that is the pupils’ prescribed mentality at Appleyard. The Rock is an eerie, deceptive source of aesthetic fascination for the girls, their providential voyage into social and sexual liberation, in their removal of gloves and stockings, a sacred outlet for self-discovery and affirmation of their true rather than conformist identity.

Russell Boyd’s exquisite cinematography combines with the Zamfir theme to forge a unique, breathtaking evocation of human interaction with the natural scene, an almost dream-like quality that both enchants and discomforts – the beauty is magnetic, to be sure, but at what cost to its characters, about whom, through the quality of the performances, we come to care deeply? Among the Appleyard student elite, Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert) is the paradigmatic icon, a blond heroine dubbed by French instructor Mademoiselle de Poitiers (Helen Morse), musing over The Birth of Venus, “…a Botticelli Angel”.

Shared though we have in the girls’ beautifully-realised moments of freedom, a number of pupils, Miranda among them, are drawn, with a palpable submissiveness, to a crack in the Rock, into which they venture, and from which only one, Irma (Karen Robson), will ultimately re-emerge. The Rock, having turned the girls’ inquisitiveness against their reason, shows, later, an evidently pensive Miss McCraw that not even her immersion in the elegant precision of Euclidean geometry can assure her safety from its mysterious force, as she, too, disappears.

Mrs Appleyard, alerted in the evening to the disappearances, must now strive to maintain the face of the College, amid public intrigue and media scrutiny, with alcohol becoming her only source of comfort when her usually faultless composure is impeded by the intense, global interest in the case.

The police are not alone in investigating the disappearances, with a young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert, after observing Miranda at the Rock, becoming obsessed with finding out the truth. Michael’s profound sense of responsibility, though slightly undermined by the occasionally mocking disinterestedness of his valet, Albert Crundall, nevertheless makes for a pleasing if unlikely chemistry between an incorrigibly principled traveller and the well-meaning crudity of his native servant, portrayed, respectively, by Dominic Guard and John Jarratt. Their friendship lends a touch of humour to an otherwise spellbinding yet often involved entertainment.

Weir’s film is a compelling, effortlessly engaging study of Man’s collision with Nature and its resultant effects, accompanied by a telling dissolution of perceived gender roles, and how burgeoning independence necessitates sometimes uncomfortable distinctions between freedom and happiness. Dichotomies of space and time, and an intoxicating union of the sublime and the subliminal, combine to make Picnic a masterpiece of social critique, quiet drama and rare visual richness.