Picnic At Hanging Rock (DVD)
This sensual and striking chronicle of a disappearance and its aftermath put director Peter Weir on the map and helped usher in a new era of Australian cinema. Based on an acclaimed 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock is set at the turn of the twentieth century and concerns a small group of students from an all-female college who vanish, along with a chaperone, while on a St. Valentine’s Day outing. Less a mystery than a journey into the mystic, as well as an inquiry into issues of class and sexual repression in Australian society, Weir’s gorgeous, disquieting film is a work of poetic horror whose secrets haunt viewers to this day.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED TWO-DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- Remastered high-definition digital film transfer, supervised by director Peter Weir, presented in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1
- Interview with Weir
- Program on the making of the film, featuring interviews from 2003 with executive producer Patricia Lovell, producers Hal McElroy and Jim McElroy, and cast members
- Introduction by film scholar David Thomson, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film
- On-set documentary hosted by Lovell and featuring interviews with Weir, actor Rachel Roberts, and source-novel author Joan Lindsay
- Homesdale (1971), a black comedy by Weir
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by author Megan Abbott