Picnic at Hanging Rock (Blu-ray)
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.
- Remastered high-definition digital film transfer, supervised by director Peter Weir, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Extended interview with Weir
- New piece on the making of the film, featuring interviews from 2003 with executive producer Patricia Lovell, producers Hal McElroy and Jim McElroy, and cast members
- New introduction by film scholar David Thomson, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film
- A Recollection . . . Hanging Rock 1900 (1975), an on-set documentary hosted by Lovell and featuring interviews with Weir, actor Rachel Roberts, and source novel author Joan Lindsay
- Homesdale (1971), an award-winning black comedy by Weir
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by author Megan Abbott