DILLON ON FILM

Peter Weir: Seven Essential Films

Australia’s greatest director remains criminally underrated

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). Credit: BEF Film Distributors

Peter Weir is an Australian national treasure. His superb body of work is studded with masterpieces, and he often coaxes career-best performances from his leads. I consider him the greatest director to have emerged from Down Under, both with his early work, and subsequent films made in the Hollywood studio system. It’s a crying shame that in this age of endless superheroes and sequels, Weir’s brand of compelling, intelligent, emotionally resonant, grown-up filmmaking doesn’t get a look-in. He hasn’t made a film since the solid, underrated The Way Back (2010), which sadly didn’t make much of a dent in the box office.

Thematically, Weir explores themes of alienation, loneliness, and clashing cultures, which recur in many of his works. He has a rare talent for imbuing his subject matter with an eerie, sometimes dangerous sense of magical realism. There’s an enigmatic beauty to his work, reflecting the dreamlike atmospheres exhibited by more celebrated visual poets such as David Lean. That the man hasn’t won an Oscar is nothing less than criminal.

In the hope of sparking renewed interest in his work, tying in with both the 35th anniversary of Dead Poets Society (1989), and that he is to…