Picnic at Hanging Rock (Blu-Ray, #29)

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. Valentines 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, Weirs 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 and, for the Blu-ray edition, an excerpt from film scholar Marek Haltofs 1996 book Peter Weir: When Cultures Collide