New Trailer for 4K Restoration of Peter Weir’s ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’
by Alex Billington
January 14, 2025
Source: YouTube
“Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place.” Janus Films has unveiled a new official trailer for the new 4K restoration & re-release of Picnic at Hanging Rock, an acclaimed Australian film from 1975. It was the third feature film at the time from director Peter Weir – way before he would go on to make The Last Wave, Gallipoli, The Mosquito Coast, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, Master and Commander, The Way Back and other films. It was a part of the Australian New Wave cinema movement at the time. Starring Rachel Roberts, Dominic Guard, Helen Morse, Vivean Gray, and Jacki Weaver. The plot involves the disappearance of several schoolgirls and their teacher during a picnic at Hanging Rock, Victoria on Valentine’s Day in 1900, and the subsequent effect on the local community. Roger Ebert was also a big fan of this, calling it “a film of haunting mystery and buried sexual hysteria” which “employs two of the hallmarks of modern Australian films: beautiful cinematography and stories about the chasm between settlers from Europe and the mysteries of their ancient new home.” Well, that should be enough to convince you this is worth a watch especially with this 4K restoration playing in US art house theaters soon.
Here’s the new 4K restoration trailer (+ poster) for Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, on YouTube:
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 from 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. Picnic at Hanging Rock is directed by the acclaimed Australian filmmaker Peter Weir, his third feature film at the time just after The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) and before The Last Wave (1977). The screenplay is written by Cliff Green; based on the novel of the same name by Joan Lindsay. It’s produced by Hal McElroy & Jim McElroy. This initially opened in Australia in August 1975. Janus Films will re-release Picnic at Hanging Rock in 4K starting on January 31st, 2025 this winter. Any fans of this one?
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