If you ask a person who is not burdened by Kinomania, what Australian films he knows, most are primarily guaranteed to call a “picnic at a hanging cliff”. And will have every reason for this. The film, the premiere of which took place in August 1975, was not without reason immediately recognized as a masterpiece - both the Australian public and the European, and a little later, the American (and, in fact, the first in Australia was world success). And if you ask a person who is not burdened by the bookman, what kind of well -known works of Australian literature he knows, it is very likely that it will again be “a picnic at a hanging rock”. And again, quite justified. Because the literary source, although inferior to the fame of the film, deserves reading. Especially if after the film you have already ended up in a multi-thousandth fan club, for 50 years looking for the answer to the question: what happened to the girls on that famous rock?

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Acquaintance with a double hit of Australian culture should begin in this order: first watch the film directed by Peter Wira - a monumental canvas, where the story of a closed girl’s college with his almost caricature Victorian manner and regulated boredom unfolds against the backdrop of a violent Australian nature. Slowly, under a well -chosen musical series - Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, as well as the “Pan flute” of the Romanian musician George Zamfir. Young pupils of a private institution, deprived of relations with guys, spill their feelings on each other, giving “Valentines” to their favorites. On Valentine's Day, college students (with the exception of one girl punished for unstable) under the alert supervision of female personnel organize a picnic for a hanging rock. The rock of the same name is quite real - this is a mountain in Victoria, relatively close to Melbourne. A picnic with sweets and tea, with the obligatory homework “Write a natural science report on what you saw” does not promise anything extraordinary, but it happens. Four girls, with the permission of the teacher, go on a trip close to the location of the girl’s camp and disappear without a trace. More precisely, three of them disappear, one soon returns in a state of complete shock, and her subsequent stories do not spill a drop of light on a terrible riddle. Following the girls one of the teachers goes and also disappears....

Retell the further plot to someone who has not seen the film does not make sense. But it can be guaranteed - if he hooked, the Internet will give many sources for different versions with attempts to unravel the causes of the tragedy, from criminal to geological (poisoning hallucinogenic gases, the displacement of rocks during low -power earthquake) and, of course, mystical, ufological and other. Fans of film " For example, the year when the events of the novel take place-the 1900th-was clearly chosen by chance, taking into account the fact that it has nothing to do with the hypothetical real time of the accident that allegedly occurred on the rock. Its symbolism is multidimensional. First of all, this is the last year of the 19th century, “good old” - compared to loud, full of tragedies, upheavals, tectonic faults of the twentieth century. This is the end of the glorious “Victorian era” - the historical period in the history of Great Britain, which is chronologically associated with the rule of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). Finally, this is the last year before the start of the Australia of Independence. Shortly after the tragic events in a rather mediocre, despite the imaginary respectability, closed college, namely, on January 1, 1901, the Australian colonies will unite into the Australian Commonwealth, after which a long process of transformation will begin into an independent state. “Good old Britain” with officers in red uniforms and women in tight corsets (corset is also one of the main symbolic lures in the film) will soon disappear, but now it seemed to freeze in time. Like a clock that was surprisingly stopped at the same time at the beginning of a picnic under a hanging rock - and the avalanche of tragic events began with this....

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The viewer interested in the film obviously wants to familiarize himself with the original source. This can be done in Ukrainian, because in 2021 the novel by Joan Lindsay of the same name was first published in translation (BookRaine Publing House). And even reprinted in 2023, which for the market of domestic translated literature is an infrequent phenomenon. The book can be purchased now both in the paper and electronic version.

As for the author, its biography is presented in many sources, including the preface in the book. Joan Lindsay (1896–1984) is from a wealthy family in which the grandfather was the governor of Tasmania. The woman has achieved good success as an artist, and subsequently art critic. Since the 1920s, I have tried myself as a journalist and writer, but has achieved real success thanks to the novel “Picnic at the hanging cliff”, written at a solid age-in 1967. The book was written in a few weeks, but at first I had no success. Real Glory came after an amazingly successful film adaptation. (It should be noted that formally it was not even the first attempt to transfer the work to cinema. In 1969, another director tried to adapt it for the screen - very young Tony Ingrem. However, his financial and other possibilities were enough only for a 10-minute passage for the future film “Valentine's Day”).

The mysterious story turned out to be the last, 18th section of the book, which reveals the author’s version of what happened to the disappeared girls on the hanging rock. According to the widespread version, the section was seized during the publication of the work and published only after the death of the author, in 1987. Although skeptics believe that this section of Lindsay does not belong - it was written by literary agents for commercial purposes. In the classical publications of the novel, in particular Ukrainian, there is no 18th section, but it can be found without problems in the Russian-language segment of the Internet. However, reading it, most likely, will not satisfy the intrigued reader.

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Having turned the last page of the book, you can decide to view the repeated film adaptation of the “rock”-the six-part Australian mini-series that saw the light in 2018.

Of course, he does not reach the level of Peter Wir's masterpiece - but probably does not claim. This is a self-sufficient film product, which will obviously like the fan club of the ridge of the cliff, although it is removed quite “by motives”.

Canadian director of Ukrainian origin Larisa Kondratski (1976. ) She moved away from the mystical side of history (which, by the way, Joan Lindsay herself never clearly said whether she took something real as a basis, or came up with absolutely everything) in favor of the drama with the criminal basis. With only hints and without the clue more than 50 years of mysterious history from the Australian life of the last year of the 19th century.