Blissed out on cooler mornings and breaks of breeze, the Northern Hem Virgo Season prepares its golden goodbye from Summer to Autumn. Reminiscent of childhood’s grade year beginnings, eager to learn, a love of books and (admittingly) routine, we make plans for cherished Fall frolics, bracing for the occasional hellish hot days that try to hang on. Dabbling in a new project (very Virgo), we present the first of our Femme Film Astro Archetypes, set in the swelter of untouched Australia, following students from an orderly, perfectionist academy. Note that the text ahead will contain some spoilers for our Virgo film pick.
In the fade, as the weather makes its change, the words of Sarah Helen Whitman resonate:
“When summer gathers up her robes of glory, And, like a dream, glides away.”
Picnic at Hanging Rock is an ethereal and enigmatic tale about a group of schoolgirls seduced by the strange powers of Earth, an environment that becomes a character of its own.
Based on the novel published in 1967, Australian author Joan Lindsay had a strong connection to the real-life Hanging Rock in Victoria, poising the events as a true story. Once a place of spiritual significance for multiple tribes driven away due to colonization, Jason Tamiru explained that “the mystique and spiritual essence of the Rock has contributed to the story of our Dreaming, which binds my people to our creator spirits and country.” Though the traditional occupants are not mentioned in the film by Peter Weir, the enigmatic flute which weaves throughout the gauzy scenes alludes to an indigenous sacred Earth connection of the terrain, previous to the expulsion of the area. Though there are suggestions of human violence as a culprit to the disappearance of three girls and one teacher from Appleyard College, as the story unfolds it is clear a much stronger power compelled the women to climb the Rock in a trance-like summoning.
The strange “all-knowing” aura of Miranda as the leader of the adventure, however, does not seem to be lost. Her kind demeanor to even some of the less likable people in her company, reverence of nature and animals, sharing warmth with her inner circle, is exemplary Virgo energy. And yet her cryptic dialogue about the Future and the Past, her calm demeanor climbing the Rock, crosses into the role of an unassuming mystic. Obsession with time, strict itinerary, arguments over accurate geo-history of the Rock, when all the clocks stop working and the picnic attendees lose track of time… each play theme into Lindsay’s life, perhaps explained by the Pauli Effect, psychokinetic abilities or the magnetism of people or places.
Director Peter Weir backs up the claims that Lady Lindsay’s effect on watches was indeed true; both on set and at the premiere, nearby clocks were stopped at specific time frames with no logical cause. And though there is a problematic aspect to Lindsay’s position as a wealthy white woman tapping into the spiritual landscape, an increasing Victorian narrative of the “globalization of esotericism”, the Rock itself as a central energy is an important tale about the unseen powers of Earth beyond what can be readily explained. Whether perceived as eco-horror or divine un-learning is in the eye of the beholder, though Lindsay’s choice to withhold the last chapter and conclusion of Picnic seals the looming theme of Nature and the Cosmic Beyond being stronger than humanity’s definitions of History and Civilization.
The further comparison of the awe-striking and unforgiving power of time, versus the small, minute, painstaking beauty of fragile human life, gone in a flash, is the most readily available metaphor to grasp. Perhaps the wildest interpretation, yet similar, has a much more specific analogy:
“The hanging rock is the Rock of Zion. It denotes a deity who is removed from the natural world and who leaves no tracks. Such a deity can only be alluded to by the most implacable, im-penetrable, and unarticulated manifestation of nature.
Sublime and severe, the rock is supremely dangerous; for it takes whatever it wants and offers no explanation. It is power and might without love and grace: the god of an old testament, the Ancient of Days.
To this rock come a band of virgins; the very young girls arrive at the rock, whose 350 million years already terrify them. At midday, when time stops, the knife slices the heart-shaped Valentine cake in half, proleptic penetration of their as yet intact vaginas, intactness which is monitored explicitly through the story. The girls are spring roses and romance; they are all articulateness, beauty, inwardness, passion and preoccupation with self-representation.”
British philosopher Gillian Rose
By the end of Weir’s purposefully hallucinatory, mesmeric masterpiece, there are no answers. The dreamy haze settles, leaving further tragedy in its wake, especially those at the academy, and the whole town is driven to confusion in the shadow of the Rock. Survivor’s grief punctuates the second half of the film and the viewer takes a piece of that longing… for knowing, for closure… left with even more questions, a precursor of “feminine mystery” seen in films like The Virgin Suicides.
Visit our Instagram for a video edit on Picnic at Hanging Rock by Comedic Goddess, Femme Filmmaker and major Moon contributor Murda Hill.