"Picnic at Hanging Rock": Disappearing Schoolgirls, Serenaded by the Pan Flute (Master Thereof)

I watched the most excellent and unusual Peter Weir 1975 suspense film "Picnic at Hanging Rock"; it's worth checking not least for its rather bizarre origin as a novel, and the missing last book chapter that "explained" everything but was wisely left out. Good on ya, IFC channel, for scheduling this one.

The action (such as it is -- girls go on picnic, climb rock, disappear) starts in an Australian girl's boarding school in 1900. The genius of this film is that the atmosphere of suspense and dread comes from the pre-Raphaelite beauty and dreaminess of these girls and their upright Victorian minders and the rugged working men lurking nearby; the girls with their fluttering white dresses and pressed flowers and invocations to St Valentine barely concealing raging suppressed passions and merciless personal denials; the teachers with their leonine updos and perfect posture and desperate attempts to stick a firm finger in the dyke of sexual awakening. (No pun intended; seriously, what do you take me for? You need a cold shower.)

Best of all, the dreamiest scenes are scored by the pan flute stylings of the Master himself, Gheorghe Zamfir. I knew there was something menacing about that guy.