The opening title card of Picnic At Hanging Rock reads like this:
On Saturday 14th February 1900 a party of schoolgirls from Appleyard College picnicked at Hanging Rock near Mt. Macedon in the state of Victoria. During the afternoon several members of the party disappeared without a trace...
Foreshadowing Ghosts
Just as the morbid sisters of Sofia Coppola’s Virgin Suicides danced dreamily around their suburban prison awaiting their fates, so too the ill-fated girls of Peter Weir’s Picnic At Hanging Rock dance about, reciting poetry and whispering, dressed in ghostly white attire, as if they were already vapors wafting through the atmosphere.
Further foreshadowing the imminent mystery, one of the soon-to-be lost girls, Miranda, quotes Edgar Allen Poe, What we see and what we seem are but a dream within a dream.
Mystery Lying Within Caves
Before the girls head out on their field trip, the headmistress sternly warns them about the dangers lying in wait throughout Hanging Rock, in the form of venomous snakes and other poisonous creatures large and small.
Once at the park, the girls and their chaperones lay about, eating their picnic, and continuing with their poetry recitals, in the shadow of the enormous rocks. The much favored and beautiful Miranda convinces her friends Edith, Irma, and Marion to go on an exploration of the rocks and caverns above.
An extended Lynchian shot of ants frantically consuming a discarded piece of bread and jam sets the darkening mood.
