It
is considered one of the most quintessentially Australian novels of all time.
The 1975 film adaptation not only helped popularize the Australian New Wave
internationally, it also launched the careers of Oscar-nominated director Peter
Weir, John Jaratt (star of the notorious Wolf
Creek films), and Gheorghe Zamfir, “Master of the Pan flute” (heard on the
soundtrack). It takes a lot of guts to have another go at such an iconic
property, but somehow screenwriters Beatrix Christian and Alice Addison, along
with Larysa Kondracki (director of three episodes and general “creative
consultant”) pull it off with dashed impressive verve. The completely
binge-worthy six-episode limited-series adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock (trailer here) defies skepticism
when it launches this Friday on Amazon Prime.
On
Valentine’s Day 1900, several students of Appleyard College and one of their
teachers mysteriously vanished while on the school’s annual picnic at the Hanging
Rock formation in central Victoria. Their disappearance caused a scandal in the
sleepy village and sparked a media firestorm throughout the rough-and-tumble nation.
Despite days of searching, no sign was found of any of the missing picnickers.
It led many of their classmates (as well as readers and viewers) to question
the legitimacy of concepts like truth and reality. Then one of the girls is miraculously
found alive on the rock’s summit, but this only leads to more questions and greater
uncertainty.
Weir’s
1975 Hanging Rock is considered one
of the haziest, dreamiest, most disorienting films ever. The 2018 television
adaptation has those qualities too, especially the earlier episodes helmed by
Kondracki, but it also embraces the gothic implications of the story. Oftentimes,
this Hanging Rock feels like it might
have been ghost-written by Daphne du Maurier or even Willkie Collins, which is
not a bad thing. In fact, Henry James’ Turn
of the Screw plays a small but aptly significant role as reading material
for two of the missing during the prior Christmas break.
Natalie
Dormer fully embraces the gothic femme fatale tradition as a decidedly younger
Mrs. Appleyard than the Weir film has accustomed us to. Yet, she is terrific
casting withering stares and dropping barbed comments. Watching her lord over
Appleyard College is deliciously entertaining in the manner of vintage Hammer
Films. Unfortunately, Kondracki and company somewhat overdo a good thing by
incorporating far too many flashbacks from her lurid past in London.
In
contrast, the voluminous flashbacks featuring the missing students (and their
wayward teacher Miss McCraw) quite effectively and intriguingly deepen the
story and strengthen the character development. They also explain how what was
quite haunting as a one hundred-minute film can hold up and maintain its atmosphere
of mystery over six fifty-some-minute episodes.
Hanging Rock 2018 could very well catapult the twentysomething
central trio of Lily Sullivan, Samara Weaving (niece of Hugo), and Madeleine
Madden to international stardom. In a way, they are archetypes who together
make a whole. Sullivan plays Miranda Reid, the Katharine Hepburn-esque free-spirit,
who chafes under traditional gender roles. Weaving is Irma Leopold, a pampered
but emotionally neglected heiress, while Madden is Marion Quade, the shy,
cerebral daughter of a scandalous mixed-race union—in a perhaps the most dramatic,
but fruitful innovation on Weir’s long-presumed definitive film.
This
time around, the underclassman Sara Waybourne is played by the conspicuously
younger (and talented) Inez Currõ, which makes the dynamics of her hero-worshipping
relationship with Reid much more logical and believable. Among the grown-ups,
Lola Bessis nicely counterbalances Miss Appleyard’s evil eye as French
instructor Mlle. de Poitiers, who emerges as Hanging Rock’s gothic heroine.
