Interpretacja filmu "Picnic at Hanging Rock"

Dreamlike atmosphere, beautiful views and magical music are things, which make Peter Weir’s “Picnic at Hanging Rock” worth watching. The work of the Australian director is based on the novel entitled “Picnic at Hanging Rock” written in 1967 by Joan Lindsay. The words that come from the book: “He reminded himself that he was in Australia now: in Australia, where any-thing might happen”, are the essence of the movie, as the events described there are highly mysterious and impossible to explain in a simple way.

“Picnic at Hanging Rock” tells the story of a group of girls from private boarding school in Australia, Appleyard College, who, on St. Valentine’s Day in 1900, take a field trip to Hanging Rock, a sacred Aboriginal outcropping located on the edge of the Australian bush. Three of the girls and their mathematics teacher disappear into thin air. One of them is found about week later, but she is not able to say anything about the mysterious events that took place. Police searching action come to nothing and the Hanging Rock secret stays impenetrable. Many questions are raised in the film but no explanation is given.

There are lots of speculations about the events which happened that afternoon on the Hanging Rock, some of them include the possibility of intervention of supernatural forces. Was it the magnetism of the mysterious rock? Did they enter another time line? Or maybe their disappearance was a result of simple accident and they fall into crevice? Another theory involves UFO, and for me this one seems to sound the most reasonable. As strange it may sound, I found there evidences that support my theory.
First of all, people who had watches noticed that all of them stopped exactly at noon. This kind of phenomenon is connected with magnetic emanation from spaceships, which is widely linked with abduction.
Secondly, the girls were moving like in a dream, so they might have been controlled by some supernatural forces that lead them to the place of abduction. It is possible that this was not Miranda’s first abduction as before leaving she warned her friend Sara that she may not return. In that case it is possible that these forces ordered her to bring her friends to the place of abduction for they wanted to make more examinations on them.
Thirdly, the girl that has been found was not able to tell what happened, which might be an indication of the fact that she suffered from time loss, which is very often observed in case of abductees.
This theory also explains why found girl’s feet were unharmed despite the fact that she lost her shoes. It is because she was abducted so she did not move when she was on the UFO’s board. The lack of parts of her clothing may be the result of the examinations that was made on her by extraterrestrials.
Here arise question: why was she returned and other girls not? Well, I do not know the answer to this question but I can speculate that the examination failed for some reason and they decided to return her.
Second question that may be asked is: why nobody saw an UFO if it was abduction? In my opinion this was possible because of stopped time. All the people except the girls did not experience the passage of time. They were simply stopped with the time, unconscious of anything that was happening.

However, the movie may be also interpreted in a metaphorical way, where the explanation what happened to the girls is not the most important issue, the question that we ask here is not what happened but why it happened. What is crucial here is the contrast between civilization and nature around which the movie is constructed. Culture so the civilization is presented in the movie as something very weak when confronted with nature so the Earth spirit. Nature shows her greatness through the Hanging Rock, which is the symbol of strength and eternity, it is a perfect creation that holds some mysterious powers. This rock is similar to the wild Australia, which holds many secrets which are still not discovered. Civilization is represented by Appleyard College and the people who are very weak creatures, and who can be easily controlled by the forces of nature – girls are the prove of it. Despite the fact that people believe that the world, so also the nature belongs to them, the truth is completely reverse, because the nature is the real ruler of the Earth, not the human beings, she wants to show mortals that if they want to steal her wilderness she will fight with them, and those who are going to lose this battle are humans, as they are weaker, that is why the police fail in finding missing girls, it’s a symbolic nature’s victory over mankind, it is also a kind of warning.
The music is not indifferent to the distinction between the two worlds of nature and civilization. Nature is illustrate by unique sound of pan pipes, which is extremely beautiful and at the sae time sounds a little pagan, so also wild and uncivilized. When the rock is presented the music reflects its mystery and greatness through the creation of terrifying anxious atmosphere. Everything changes when the civilized world is presented, the music that supports it is not wild at all, it is highly civilized Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, a music which is sophisticated without the barbaric element.

To sum up, the movie “Picnic at Hanging Rock” does not provide us with the ready explanation of the events. What have happened to the missing girls remains unexplained, and this is definitely advantage of the movie as it gives the opportunity to find our own explanation and our own interpretation of the situation that came to existence. Perfectly chosen music that creates unique, oneiric atmosphere is next strength of the work. Finally, the Hanging Rock, and beautiful views that it provides. When we look at this rock we feel its mysterious powers, its greatness and its indestructibility. Echoing Miranda’s words: “everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place,” this is true also about “Picnic at Hanging Rock” , it keeps in suspense from the beginning to the end, and when it ends the viewer feels in the beginning that there should be something more, but when she/he starts to think it becomes obvious that if the explanation what happened on the Hanging Rock that day would be given the movie would lose all its uniqueness, there would be too much information.