Somewhere over the rainbow?

Regular readers are probably wondering, and rightly, why is there a movie review on Corehammer? No Elves, Orcs or Space Marines make an appearance I’m afraid. No ‘grimdark’ future war settings…so what gives? Allow me to enlighten you friends. Pretentious as it sounds I like to write about things that move me. Whether that be music, art, experiences, games… my posts on CH are connected by tenuous threads that stretch back into childhood, weaving together a tapestry of adolescent wonder and horrors. A Field In England stirs similar emotions to those I felt the first time I clapped eyes on that piece of Ian Miller artwork I posted a few weeks back, or how odd I felt after I saw The Wicker Man at thirteen years of age or heard Integrity’s For Those Who Fear Tomorrow and on and on…Like the great prophet Jarvis Cocker once quipped ‘something changed’.

With all that in mind then, I’m convinced that Ben Wheatley makes films just for me. It’s like he’s hacked my netflix history, tossed it into a cauldron, performed some foul alchemy and out crawled Down Terrace, Kill List, Sight Seers and AFIE. He makes smirking, vicious, disturbing movies that mesh the mundane with the majickal. Dirty kitchen sinks brimming over with paranoia, murder, folklore and symbolism that have a black seam of gallows humour coursing right through the center of them like an infected artery.

AFIE is set against the backdrop of the English Civil War. By a conspiracy of circumstance three disperate and diverse individuals (Whitehead a nervous, simpering academic and two soldiers Friend and Jacob. The first simple minded but kind hearted, the latter seemingly interested solely in baser pleasures) find themselves fleeing from a battle through a briar hedge and into a field whereupon they meet Cutler, a soldier of ambiguous allegiances and murky motivations. Cutler leads the unlikely companions via a magic mushroom circle toward a meeting with ill destiny. The agent of change awaiting them comes in the shape of O’ Neil (played by Wheatley regular Michael Smiley) a mysterious and charismatic alchemist who has some type of previous colleagueship with Whitehead in the service of an occasionally mentioned ‘Master’.

Pop goes the weasel

The mounting sense of dread and paranoia rapidly accelerates here as things take a psychotic turn once the companions reach O’Neils camp. Whitehead (deemed to have powers of divination) is then promptly ushered into a tent by O’Neil. What follows is one of the most unnerving sequences I’ve seen in a movie in recent years, as we hear Whiteheads blood curdling screams emenating from the tent (reminiscent of Officer Howie perhaps?), we’re not privy to the exact nature of his suffering and for that I’m grateful. Whitehead slowly emerges from the depths of his own hell bound and dishevelled from the ordeal with a truly insane expression plastered across his face. Moving slowly like some bizarre broken marionette, the sickening inane grin never leaves his face during the next four minutes as he staggers in slow motion from the murk of the tent into the stark light of day. It’s a disturbing piece of cinema.

For me to further describe the plotline or story of AFIE would be absolutely pointless. It’s an allegorical movie. It does not have a particularly linear narrative. I take a movie like this to be more about creating a mood or a vibe and posing questions than simply being entertained for an hour and twenty minutes. Different people are gonna percieve this piece of work in myriad different ways and depending on your life experiences or the garbage cluttering up the inside of your head it’s gonna raise different questions. I’ve had a browse through the feedback online and it would appear viewers have found AFIE either utterly absorbing or, by contrast, completely alienating. I fall firmly into the first category.

Shearsmith is perfect in the character of Whitehead and delivers a powerful performance in role that he was clearly born to play. From bookish simpering to drooling possession, he nails it perfectly. Likewise Smiley exudes plenty of the nonchalant menace that is slowly becoming his calling card. The brooding tracking shots of rural England manage to be somehow both suffocating and serene at once. Wheatleys occasional use of tableaux or ‘living pictures’ is an inspired move and successfully ramps up the weirdness in an unexpected manner.The sound design and clever insertion of traditional folk songs reminded me of The Wicker Man or Blood On Satans Claw and the use of specific aspects of British folklore as a plot device gave me a little Fortean boner too

All that being said, some of the brutal criticism AFIE has received is justified. The dialogue is turgid in places and certainly contributed to a sense of sluggishness that diluted the carefully constructed tensions in a couple of scenes. There’s some pacing issues and the psychedelia sequence felt a bit like a second year film students end of term project. Like SSD said ‘How much art can you take?’

Looks a bit like the picture at the top?

Reflecting upon my first viewing of the movie my initial lazy comparison was to Apocalypse Now with Wheatley trading the psychotic festering heat of the Cambodia for the gently brooding microcosm of the titular English field. Smiley as the shamanic Kurtz and Shearsmith in the role of Willard with a mans soul hanging in the balance. Recurring themes of metaphysical change and personal apocalypse are central to both films along with the psychedelic surrealism, esoteric imagery and a dark humour (though here it’s coloured by shades of Monty Python absurdity and a hint of the macabre wit of Shearsmiths own League Of Gentlemen). It was during my second viewing of the film that I made a direct connection between AFIE and The Wizard Of Oz. ‘Take courage’ sneers Cutler to Jacob as scruffy scarecrow Friend picks himself up and puts himself back together again and again and again. Is Whitehead meant to be Dorothy or the Lion? O’Neil the Great & Powerful? I have not figured it out yet but perhaps AFIE is more Yellow Brick Road than Nung River after all? I’ll leave that notion there to explore or deride as you please.

As I mentioned at the start of this rambling review, I’m just trying to explain how AFIE made ME feel. It’s a subjective experience so don’t allow my perception of the film to colour your decision to view it or not. It’s highly likely that I’m talking out of my arse. Similarly don’t be influenced by the multitude of dissenting voices who said it was rubbish or didn’t move them in any way. AFIE is not a film that holds your hand throughout then gently explains everything to you in the final reel. When we’ve been fed nought but Hollywoods bland and thoughtless gruel for so long it’s not hard to understand why so many would find the taste of Wheatley’s odd brew difficult to swallow. Make up your own mind….Open up and let the Devil in.