A different Valentine's movie

The Australian director Peter Weir's, better known for Greencard and Dead Poets Society, second film Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) is a visually dreamlike period movie with an eerie soundtrack fitting for its unresolved mystery.

Picnic at Hanging Rock tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of three schoolgirls and their teacher during a picnic at a Australian geological formation known as Hanging Rock on Valentine's Day in 1900. The reason for their disappearance, whether by human, natural or supernatural agency, was never discovered, but as the movie shows their disappearance has a profound effect upon everybody in their community.

Although she commands only a little more than a half-hour of screen time, the film's central character is Miranda, a young student whose beauty is compared by her teacher to one of Botticelli's angels. Her circle of friends includes Irma, Marion, Rosamund and the Sara whose affection for Miranda stems from a deep crush. Miranda tells Sara she "won't be here much longer," suggesting a premonition of her disappearance.

The girls ride to Hanging Rock, a 500-foot tall volcanic rock formation about 11 km northeast of their College in the Australian bush. In mid-afternoon, four of the girls decide to explore the rock defying their teacher’s instruction and never return. The nearby town of Woodend quickly becomes restless as news of the disappearance spreads. The townsfolk are angry, demanding answers. One week later, a sole survivor returns to school -- with hardly any memory of the incident. Peter Weir's haunting tragedy alludes to several explanations but offers no clear-cut answers.

Admittedly, not everyone cup of tea to spend Valentine's Day in cliffhanging suspense without clear-cut answers, but the film offers escape into the surreal pastoral Australian outback, and unlike Gary Marshall's conventional Valentine's Day (2010), Weir's Picnic streams instantly on Netflix...