Truman Show's Peter Weir poses a puzzler in `Picnic'

The impressive thing about director Peter Weir is his range. Today's buzz is all about "The Truman Show," his very contemporary satire, but 23 years ago he made "Picnic at Hanging Rock," an exquisite period piece. Part mystery, part fantasy, the film defies categorization, hypnotizing the viewer with its visual elegance and haunting soundtrack, heavy on organ and reedy flutes. It has been unseen in this country for nearly a decade.

Maybe it's even horror, as it centers on the disappearance of three virginal young girls and a schoolmistress during a boarding school outing. It isn't some monster who snatches them; in fact, we never do fully understand what happened.

Weir slowly builds a mystery that is odd and unsettling. The story, based on Joan Lindsay's novel, begins on Valentine's Day 1900 at Mrs. Appleyard's College for Young Women. The students are innocence personified in their high-necked white lace dresses, washing up in sinks filled with flower petals.

But there are tensions among them -- girls obsessed with other girls, intense jealousies; basically Victorian repression pulled so tight it's ready to snap in the sultry Australian heat.

It is this contrast that makes "Picnic at Hanging Rock" so powerful, so lovely, and yet quietly perverse.

Weir leaves many questions unanswered, yet manages to draw the viewer deeper and deeper into the story.

This gift for subtle storytelling is what makes his later films, "The Year of Living Dangerously," "Witness" and "Fearless" among them, so great.

With "The Truman Show," a very gifted man is finally getting the recognition he deserves.

by Karen Hershenson, Knight Ridder Newspapers


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