Peter Weir’s 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock (Henceforth, Picnic) opens with dramatic shots of Hanging Rock, a geological formation that is both sublime and terrifying to its spectators. The shot is scored with evocative music foretelling the imminent misfortune of the girls. Perhaps the most poignant establishing shot, is of the girls tightly lacing each other’s corsets, their faces turned away. The constricting garment, then a hallmark of beauty and obedience, is indicative of the highly repressed, controlled society the girls are forced into. There is a certain kind of beauty these girls emulate; it is refined, Victorian, and, narcissistic. I examine Picnic in relation to ideas of the sublime, abjection, terror, the semiotic and symbolic, beauty, hysteria, and mimesis as expressed by philosophers Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. The film, set in 1900 is (intentionally or not) laced with references to Freudian theories of girlhood and neurosis. The panicked neurosis of the girls and their selective mutism would be classified as hysteria under Freudian thought. The patronisingly paternalistic overtones of Freud’s theories forced the girls into the categories of emotional, irrational, unstable, and neurotic. There they remained constricted by their garments and by the repressive Victorian society they were confined to, their only way out was to construct a performance so overt, dramatic, and illogical that their status as object is cast aside. The girl(s) are free from giving into patriarchal desires, and beautiful as she may be, she is now unable to offer satisfaction towards men, and they are unable to gain satisfaction from her. Here, she identifies the problem; it is not herself, rather the cultural expectations of femininity that attempt to keep her repressed. Of course, the film ends with two students and one governess still presumed ‘missing’ or taken by the rock, perhaps it is that they escaped into the rock on their own volition, as they cast off their stockings and boots, they too, cast off the shackles of a repressive society.
The Sublime and The Terror
Upon seeing the Rock, Edith remarks that it has been ‘waiting millions of years…just for us.’ The Rock is overwhelming in its infiniteness, hostility, and age. It is simultaneously sublime and terrifying. The sublime is overwhelmingly aesthetically pleasing, far exceeding the ‘beautiful’. Reckoning with it forces humans beyond realms of consciousness and into an abyss which is eerie, immeasurable, limitless, bizarre, and dark. There is an unfathomable sense of awe, wonder, intrigue, and terror that stretches far beyond cognitive recognition. Sublimity is so overwhelming that it forces the human away from womankind, where she may think the sublime object is a creation of a deity, however the pleasure of the sublime comes from the object itself. In Kantian philosophy, the sublime is caught between the aesthetic and the moral, given that the object invokes feelings of awe, terror, and religiosity.For Kant and his admirers/derivatives women are barred from the sublime, though Kant concedes that feminine objects/figures have the power to be both horrifying and aesthetically overwhelming, alluding that Mother Nature is permissible as an example of the feminine sublime. If terror is found in the sublime, then so can abjection. The abject is characterised as erratic, an abyss. Abjection threatens stable identity as the subject needs to maintain control over the abject, lest it be swallowed whole into the abyss. Abjection, like the sublime, transcends reality. It defies rationality, boundaries, and limits. The mother is found in abjection, like she is found in the sublime. She is terrifying and all encompassing, her identity is fraught/fractured between maternity and agency (masculinity). This is the Phallic Mother; she is personified by the headmistress. Mrs. Appleyard is authoritarian and unmaternal, vehemently forbidding the girls from exploration of the rock. Apart from her suicide at Hanging Rock at the end of the film, she is insulated within the school away from the bush, she has little understanding of the natural world.
The Semiotic and the Symbolic
The symbolic and the semiotic are integral to Kristeva’s philosophy. Derived from Freudian and Lacanian theories of linguistics and childhood development, Kristeva reframes these ideas through a feminist lens. Whilst the semiotic is often referred to as the prelinguistic pre-patriarchal development of language, such as the babbling of a child, it extends far beyond this. The semiotic transcends language, it is the poetics of linguistics, its existence seeks to disturb the symbolic order. Hence, the symbolic is the order of patriarchal law which seeks to create a coherent linguistic subject, for the symbolic to function, the subject must repress the semiotic. The Rock then is the semiotic. The mysteries and intrigues of The Rock are barred from those who refuse to venture from the symbolic, in the case of Edith and Ms Appleyard who are too rigid, too conforming to a world of order and law that it rejects them.
The Rock
The Rock is often thought of in binarism it is both awe inspiring and terrifying, male and female, sublime and abject. It evokes feelings of awe and terror from the schoolgirls and the governesses alike. Miss Greta McCraw comments on its form ‘Forced up from deep below’, personifying the rock with phallic imagery and a sense of sexual violation and terror. As Miranda opens the gate to the parklands, she takes in her surroundings, evocative music begins to play, her face is overlayed with horses neighing furiously, birds soaring through the sky, she is attempting to reckon with the sublime.
Once the picnic has commenced, and the cake has been cut, a sense of relaxation takes over the party. Mr. Hussey comments that his watch has stopped at 12pm, Ms McCraw remarks the same, noting that her watch has never stopped before. The stopping of time is eminent of something more otherworldly, godly perhaps, though Ms McCraw blames it on magnetics. In the following scene, Weir paints a most striking image remnant of Australian impressionists. The girls are splayed across the small slope, a soft light cascades through the valley, here the girls are merely beautiful, they have not yet transcended into the sublime. Marion asks the governess if she, Miranda, Irma and Edith can make measurements of The Rock. They are overcome with awe, reckoning with its magnitude, attempting to fathom the unfathomable. Miranda states they shall only be gone a short time, as she waves goodbye, the governess declares her to be as beautiful as a Botticelli angel. As the girls explore, the men (Bertie and Michael) comment on the beauty (or lack thereof in regards to Edith) of the girls, to them they are objects of desire, something beautiful to be possessed and used. As the girls continue to explore The Rock, Weir films from below, alluding again to phallic symbolism. The music intensifies as the girls continue their journey, the camera spans 360 degrees, magnifying the immensity and terror of The Rock. Miranda, Irma, and Marion hold hands helping each other along, leaving Edith to face the climb alone. Edith continues to complain, widening the divide between her and the others, between ugliness and beauty. The girls reject Edith, they find her lethargic, annoying, and full of complaints, she is comforted only by cake and rest. The Rock too begins to reject Edith. Marion exclaims how her father bought her a deer as a child, and her mother remarked that it was doomed, Edith questions the definition and Marion replies ‘Doomed to die of course’, in some way the girls understand their fate.
The girls continue their exploration, and low angle shots are no longer used, instead Weir films crevices laced with yonic overtones. The Rock is no longer a phallocentric object, it welcomes the girls into its intricacies. Marion discards her stockings and boots, as she dances, mesmerised by the powers of The Rock and the sublime. Miranda’s face is overcome with awe as she contends with what surrounds her. Marion seems removed from her humanity, she looks down upon her picnicking classmates and questions their intentions, claiming they are ‘performing a function unknown to themselves’. Miranda remarks that ‘Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time’. Miranda, Irma, Marion, and Edith soon fall asleep, as do the rest of the party below, apart from Ms McCraw who is also attempting to measure the rock from her book. This proves impossible, she cannot reckon with the mammoth size, the infinity, and the terror of the Rock. In reckoning with the sublime and their forced repression, Irma, Marion, and Miranda enter a trance, they rise from their slumber and continue further into The Rock, slipping away into an abyss. They ignore the cries of Edith, who screams from terror she as runs down the hill. Edith does not have the beauty of Miranda, or the intelligence of Marion or Ms McCraw. The Rock in its terror and sublimity seems to take the ‘best’ of the girls, or rather the most conforming to Victorian ideas of beauty, chastity, and repression. Here, the girls leave the realm of the beautiful and its myriad oppressions and enter the sublime.
Irigaray declares time as masculine and space as feminine. When exploring The Rock, the girls had little trouble climbing through crevasses, they are welcomed into the space. Conversely when Michael, an admirer of the girls goes to Hanging Rock to find the missing, he has great difficulty climbing the mountain. He attempts to enter a yonic tunnel, remnant of the womb, but he is unable. Here, Michael is barred from The Rock which seeks to threaten his masculinity. Michael attempts to initiate himself into the feminine realm of space and The Rock, marking his trails with scraps of paper in the trees, however he also succumbs to hallucinatory powers of The Rock, falling asleep as eerie music plays. Overlaying with shots of Michael’s slumber are the voices of Ms McCraw repeating her watch has stopped, Miranda repeats ‘everything begins at ends at exactly the right time.’ Scenes of Michael sleeping is overlayed with shots of the girls ascending into The Rock and Edith descending the hill. Michael is exhausted, unable to walk, he struggles before a vaginal opening of The Rock, where he can go no further. Bertie explores The Rock where he eventually finds Michael in a trance staring back at him, blood covering his face. He is alone and disoriented. His open palm reveals a piece of ripped lace. Bertie ascends The Rock struggling against its yonic imagery, he is eventually led to Irma, he takes her into his arms and calls for help. The Rock has rejected Irma, whilst she is of beauty, her family’s wealth presides her. When doing Irma’s laundry, the maid discovers her corset is missing, however she is advised against notifying the authorities. Irma’s missing corset is of intrigue, without it she is deemed unacceptable and defying femininity. Rejected by The Rock, Irma enters a state of hysteria when attempting to recount the events to her governess.
The Hysterical
Freud mistakenly claimed that hysteria was a repressed homosexual desire and the actions of the hysteric mimic what they are unable to articulate. In one of his most famous case studies, Dora, Freud dismisses Dora’s allegations of unwanted sexual advances made by Herr K and believed Dora’s ‘hysterical’ symptoms were due to her jealousy of the affair between her father and Frau K (Herr’s wife). In response, Dora became mute, refusing psychoanalytic treatment and refusing femininity. Irigaray refutes Freud’s notion of hysteria, arguing that the ‘hysterical’ woman ‘acts out’ because of the demeaning requirements of femininity. She (The Hysteric) denies men the pleasures of her body and the pleasures of femininity, she refutes heterosexuality and longs to return to preoedipal stage where she is comforted by maternal homosexual love. Sara, an orphan who attends Appleyard college due to guardians paying her fees, shares a room with Miranda. From the start of the film Sara seems besotted by the ethereal Miranda. She gives Miranda a beautiful Valentine’s Day card with a poem; she is gossiped about by the other girls for writing love poems about Miranda in the bathrooms. Miranda seems to a degree aware of Sara’s romantic feelings towards her, she declares she must find someone else to love, as ‘she won’t be here much longer’. Sara’s expression is saddened and pitiful. Barred from the picnic, she is forced to recite classical poetry at the instruction of the terrifying Ms Appleyard. Orphaned Sara longs for a maternal figure to replace her mother, as Ms Appleyard is obviously unsuitable, she turns her desires towards Miranda.
When the girls return from the picnic, they are all, (even the governess) in tears. All seem incapable of speech. On realisation that her beloved Miranda has disappeared, Sara is dazed and distraught. The selective mutism of the girls is a symptom of their hysteria stemming from a patriarchal world of repression and authority. The silence of the girls is remnant of Dora, they too refuse to speak in an act of defiance against the overt misogyny they are forced to endure. Weir’s minimal use of sound refutes Freud’s sexism and the echoes of Dora can be heard through the cries of the girls. Irigaray argues that trauma remains repressed until an event of similar consequences arises, bringing on symptoms of hysteria. When the police arrive at Miranda and Sara’s room to gather clothes marked with her scent, Sara exhibits hysteric symptoms. She turns away from the policeman to the direction of the camera, she is mute, and she is maudlin.
Irigaray likens air, and the ‘sounds and rhythms of the breath’ with the feminine, a type of communion where the only participant is the self. Through breathwork, the woman refutes objectivity and remains the subject. Women communicate through breath, blood, and milk even before they communicate through speech. It is through their inability to speak that these girls are heard. Their mutism defies the order and authority of their school, no longer are they beautiful objects, their aphonia allows them a sense of agency over their selves, one they have never experienced before.
After Sara’s tuition is cancelled, she is found outside at night sitting on the cold stone. She refuses to speak to the governess; she is defiant in her muteness. After refusing the maid’s offering of supper, Sara begins to speak again of her orphanhood, her lost brother Bertie, her childhood dreams of performing in the circus. As the maid attempts to comfort Sara, she pushes her away. Sara has fully entered the realm of the hysteric, she is seen mourning Miranda, and her maternal love, as she cries into a shrine of her, reciting her poems, claiming once again that Miranda was aware of her fate. When Sara is formally expelled and instructed that she will be returned to the orphanage, a smile comes across her face, like Miranda, Sara too is aware of her fate. The following day Sara’s body is found in the greenhouse, having jumped from the top of the college. Upon notifying Ms Appleyard, she is found dressed in mourning attire and does not reply when informed of Sara’s death.
Upon Irma’s return to Appleyard College to give her goodbyes the girls erupt into a fit of hysteria, they stare silently at her. Here Irma bares some resemblance to Miss McCraw in her red hat and cape. The girls begin to hound Irma regarding the other’s disappearances, screaming and pushing her, this performance seeks to highlight the pervasive repressions of femininity. Through hysteria the girls rebel against their place in society.
Whilst Miranda, Marion, and Ms McCraw have transcended ‘the beautiful’ and have entered the sublime, the remaining girls of Appleyard college have managed to erect a performance that is so histrionic, irrational, distraught that it stresses the suffocating patriarchy they reside in. The tragedy of the missing girls coincides with the resignation of several teaching staff and the cancellation of enrolment for numerous students. Ms Appleyard’s body is found at the base of The Rock, with authorities believing she intended to climb it. She, the Phallic Mother was attempting to reconcile her identity, her abandonment of the bush and the Australian landscape, however she too was rejected by The Rock. The disappearance of the Miranda, Marion and Ms McCraw and the hysterical response of the girls is what Irigaray names as ‘mimeses.’ A performance that mirrors the absurd requirements of femininity and disrupts the symbolic, allowing the girls tools to subvert their repressive patriarchal society. In the final scene of the film, Miranda waves goodbye once more, to patriarchal desire, to femininity, to her beloved friends, she is free to reside forever in the sublime.
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Picnic At Hanging Rock, directed by Peter Weir (Australia: Australian Film Commission, 1975), film, https://archive.org/details/picnic-at-hanging-rock-1975.720p-rachelroberts-anne-louise-lambert-vivean-gray-
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Salvations 