Peter Weir’s mesmerizing adaptation of the 1967 novel of the same name portrays a schoolgirls’ outing, saturated in a hazy innocence, in early twentieth-century Victoria, Australia. When some of the girls inexplicably vanish, Weir punctures the dreamy idyll with anxieties about class, race, sexual repression, and the unforgiving landscape of a country struggling with national identity and the abuses and limits of its colonial legacy. Considered a landmark of twentieth-century filmmaking, Picnic at Hanging Rock is screened in conjunction with the exhibition Under a Southern Star: Identity and Environment in Australian Photography, on view at Art on Hulfish. Introduced by Laura Giles, Heather and Paul G. Haaga Jr., Class of 1970, Curator of Prints and Drawings.
This screening is free and open to the public. Reserve your ticket on the Princeton Garden Theatre’s website. https://www.princetongardentheatre.org/films/picnic-at-hanging-rock
Directed by Peter Weir. Run time: 115 minutes. Rated PG.
