Backbencher

The movie "Picnic at Hanging Rock" is an Australian film made in 1975. It is based in 1900 and it is funny to point out that none of the characters have Australian accents. They sound quite English rather than Australian. The movie is another adaptation from an earlier book. The film is about a boarding school in Australia. The head mistress decides to take the young girls on a picnic out to what is known as hanging rock. She warns them that they are going to camp at the base and not go near the rock because it is too dangerous. Three girls and a teacher decide that they are brave enough and begin climbing the rock. A few hours later the girls simply disappear and no one knows where they have gone. When the girls cannot be found accusations begin to fly. The police are lead to a boy who was camping with his family at the rock that day and they suspect him for the disappearance. Police begin to wonder if these children had been molested and other reasons for them wanting to run away or possibly kill themselves. In the end the town is in an uproar and sorry to spoil it, but no reason is given for the disappearance. I did not like this movie for that reason. They never tell you how the girls vanished. Did they fall down the cliff? Did they run away? Was it something supernatural that did them in? In my opinion the writer simply did not have an answer for the disappearance and that is not good writing. This film would benefit us studying Australia because it shows a Victorian time long before what we have recently been studying.