PICNIC At Hanging Rock established Peter Weir as a true star when it first appeared in 1975.
A slow-burning and atmospheric tale of innocence lost, it proved a high water mark for Australian cinema and marked the young director out as a name to watch for the future.
Since then, Weir has gone on to deliver an impressive array of films, from Dead Poet's Society to The Truman Show, but there's something about that odd and affecting early feature that still chills and intrigues to this day.
Set, perhaps tellingly, on Valentine's Day 1900, it's the strange tale of a young girl called Miranda (Anne Lambert) and a selection of her schoolgirl pals from Appleyard College who take a trip to a scenic volcanic formation near Victoria called Hanging Rock.
Allowed to take this rare day out to the wilds by their strict headmistress (Rachel Roberts), the girls initially enjoy their freedom. As they explore the beauty spot, some break away from the group against the strict rules forbidding such behaviour and venture higher into the rocks. Getting tired, they stop to rest and fall asleep, but when they awake they seemingly make their way through an inviting passage in the rock face. Some of the girls and a teacher (Vivean Grey) are never seen again.
And that, slim as it may seem, plot-wise, is just about that. It's a mystery wrapped up in a pretty shroud of teenage oddness.
Beautifully shot and boasting an eerie score that adds significantly to the film's dreamlike quality, Picnic At Hanging Rock has long been a cult favourite and its status as an enigmatic study of the journey into adulthood looks set to be further enhanced by a new 4K UHD and Blu-ray release from Second Sight Films.
It's a lavish release for a quirky and often unsettling film, but leaving aside those impressive bells and whistles that range from featurettes to audio commentaries and full-length documentaries, it's the film itself that still holds you in its dreamy grip.
Wilfully vague and offering no concrete conclusions about the whereabouts of the missing girls, it's a viewing experience that some will find frustrating: but allow it to flow over you, and its deep beauty soon becomes apparent.
A slightly creepy blend of mystery and horror traditions, with maybe even a soupcon of science fiction thrown in for good measure, Weir's film unfolds slowly but impressively. There's a sense of highly charged eroticism at play at times and a suicide sub-plot that some might find problematic in 2023, but nothing is ever quite what it seems – and the lack of general explanation allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions, which is no bad thing.
This edition boasts a 4K scan and full restoration from the original camera negative supervised and approved by Weir and his director of photography Russell Boyd. Luscious to look at and more intriguing the more you watch it, this is the definitive version of a film that has lost none of its power to perplex and enthral despite the passing decades.
