On Valentine's Day, 14 February 1900, a party of schoolgirls from Appleyard College took a trip to Hanging Rock near Mount Macedon in the state of Victoria. During that idyllic sun-drenched afternoon some of the party left the rest of the group and having climbed higher, stopped to rest and fell asleep. They awoke as though still in a dream and silently ventured further through a passage in the imposing rock face. Some of the girls were never seen again.
Adapted from the novel by Joan Lindsay, the story centres around Miranda, a young student whose beauty is compared to one of Botticelli's angels by Mlle de Poitiers who teaches French and deportment. Her circle of friends includes Irma, Marion, Rosamund and the waifish Sara, an orphan, who is not allowed to go on the outing. Miranda has a premonition that she will not return from the picnic and tells Sara, who has a crush on her, that she must find someone else to love.
During the picnic, four of the girls, Miranda, Irma, Marion and Edith, decide to explore the rock in direct defiance of the headmistress, Mrs Appleyard. After following a labyrinth of paths, the girls are drawn to a plateau where they fall asleep. On waking, they get up, and seemingly under a spell, advance as one towards an inner recess, witnessed by Edith, who cries out to them not to go. It is as though they are compelled to enter and the rock swallows them. One of the teachers, Miss McCraw, goes up to see what has happened. By sunset, only Edith has returned, hysterical and unable to explain what has transpired – only that she saw Miss McCraw heading up towards the plateau without her skirt.
The police investigation by Sgt Bumpher and Constable Jones leads them to a young Englishman, Michael Fitzhubert who was lunching at the rock with his family. Michael, with Albert Crundall, the party's young local Australian valet, spent part of the lunch watching the girls' picnic, but offer no clues in the investigation. Search parties are organised, an Aboriginal tracker is brought in and finally, a bloodhound. Michael cannot forget his vision of Miranda and organises his own search. He spends the night on the rock and is found in a terrible state clutching a piece of lace which leads to the discovery of Irma, though she has no memory of what happened on the rock, or of the fate of her companions.
The school feels the effects of the tragedy and the town of Woodend quickly becomes restless as news of the disappearance spreads. An increasingly dishevelled Mrs Appleyard informs Sara that her fees have not been paid and that she will have to return to the orphanage. The next day Mrs Appleyard informs a teacher that Sara has been picked up by her guardian. The girls leave for their summer holidays under the impression that they will not return. Sara is then found in the greenhouse into which she has fallen from her window. The film ends with the information that Mrs Appleyard was found dead from a fall from the cliffs at Hanging Rock the same year.
Famed for its dreamlike aura and unresolved story, the film, released in 1975, established Peter Weir as a major filmmaker and is a critically acclaimed classic of Australian cinema. With award-winning photography and a memorably haunting score, it remains one of the most chillingly atmospheric and beautifully enigmatic films ever made.
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