Sounding 'Unstable Terrain' in Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock

Abstract

Four decades after its release, Peter Weir's impactful adaptation of Joan Lindsay's 1967 novel continues to perturb and impress audiences. Beyond its supernatural storyline and unsettling depictions of loss and landscape, what makes Picnic at Hanging Rock such a powerful piece of cinema is its careful, clever use of sound, which challenges convention and subverts colonial notions of rationalism, writes Johnny Milner.