Watership Down (1978)

For the longest time, Watership Down didn't bother me. To my younger self, it was a beautiful, rather sad book about rabbits that had been made into a beautiful, rather sad animated film about rabbits, and I watched it every chance I got plus a few more times on VHS.

Being honest, I'm not entirely sure when the sheer darkness of it hit me. It might have been once I left university and became sharply aware of how unforgiving the wider world could be, or it might have been after I got married and I was hit with the sudden, dizzying realisation of all I had to lose. Heck, maybe I was somewhere in my mid to late teens and worked out that myxomatosis probably wasn't the most enjoyable way to die. Whatever the catalyst was, however, I felt pretty disgusted with my younger self for not having been traumatised in the way that all the cool kids apparently were from their very first viewing. I still haven't stopped watching the movie every chance I get, of course - the only difference is that now I spend about half of it as a sobbing wreck.

Inventive soul that he is, today Mr. B came up with a creative solution to this: every time he heard me weeping, he shoved a piece of Easter egg in my mouth. It actually worked pretty well, but I have my worries - will this sort of Pavlovian conditioning eventually turn me into a fully-fledged bunny killer in my own right?

That's a worry for another day, though, and a million miles away from the film I've probably watched more often than any other in my life. I've watched it so often, in fact, that I'm not convinced I can write any sort of critique, not when it feels like an extension of my own thoughts and feelings. 

For what it's worth, though, I think Watership Down is a top piece of moviemaking that crams a surprising amount of content into its hundred-minute runtime, occasionally trimming some of the detail from the book but leaving the meat of it intact, including the dreamtime-style mythos that underlies the real-world action. This is what opens the film, in fact, in the form of a stylised short that tells the creation story of El-Ahrairah, first of the rabbits, and Frith, the sun/creator. It's an evocative little piece, and a not-so-gentle forewarning of the violence soon to follow.

With this out of the way, we are introduced to our protagonists - Fiver (voiced by Richard Briers), the nervous, possibly clairvoyant runt of his litter, and Hazel (John Hurt), his sensible, protective brother. The sun is setting, and Fiver has a vision of the fields turning to blood. They must abandon the presumed of their warren, he insists, and Hazel reluctantly agrees to join him. Accompanied by a handful of others, the pair depart that evening, but they have no idea of the dangers they stand to face, much less those they leave behind.

The animation is serviceable, if on the crude side; certainly, it's no worse than anything else from that era. Where Watership Down really shines, however, is on the audio side. The voice cast reads like a Who's Who of British acting talent of the period, with each and every participant playing it totally seriously. The soundtrack, too, is superb, richly textured but restrained, imbuing the piece with a quiet dignity and never descending into the sort of sonic hysteria that seems to punctuate the majority of animated films these days (Coraline is a very welcome exception). The real killer, though, is the film's single song, Art Garfunkel's discreetly devastating Bright Eyes.

In some ways, there's something rather comforting about the way the film doesn't shy away from the messier parts of existence. It deals almost entirely in moral grey areas, where even the worst villains are driven not by malice but by the sort of self-interest that doesn't allow for empathy. The world it paints is a harsh one, yes, but there is always room for mercy.

I know there's always a danger in saying X happened to me when I was a kid, and I turned out okay  - every kid is different, after all, and no two people will ever draw exactly the same things from a shared experience. That said, I can't help but bridle a little at all those reviewers out there saying Watership Down isn't for kids. I think there's plenty there that the smallest ones might not understand at first, certainly, and that it has the potential to raise some difficult questions, but isn't it the role of any caretaker worth their salt not to shy away from these sorts of uncomfortable truths?

Recommended for all ages.

Wake Wood (2009)

Once again, apologies for the interruption in schedule; just trying to get into a routine that works around my other commitments. This morning, that meant embarking on one of my periodic iPlayer raids to see what I could find. Being a chronically early riser, this is a habit I managed to acquire long before starting this blog, which is how I found Wake Wood first time around. I wouldn't say it's amongst the best the genre has to offer, but it was certainly interesting enough for me to be prepared to take another look.

For a self-confessed film buff, I haven't seen many Hammer horror films in my life; I'm not entirely convinced, in fact, that Wake Wood isn't the only one. I know of their reputation, though - lurid technicolour, even more lurid acting and copious quantities of Kensington Gore. That was back in the 60s and 70s, though, and the company lay dormant for a lot of years between then and now. In 2007, however, new owner John de Mol announced his intent to revive the Hammer tradition, and this, an Anglo-Irish collaboration, was their first feature-length effort.

The film opens with an anonymous-looking car trundling through a blandly pretty setting, soundtracked by the sort of tinkly, jangly music that helpfully informs the audience that they are now entering folk horror territory and to keep all their limbs securely within the enclosing wicker effigy. A series of brief flashbacks introduce us to our protagonists - vet Patrick Daley (Aidan Gillen), his wife Louise (Eva Birthistle) and their young daughter Alice (Ella Connolly). They're very much a movie family, bright, successful and loving, until the animal-loving Alice has a grisly encounter with one of Patrick's canine patients. Back in the present, a sign informs the occupants of the anonymous-looking car that they are entering the town of Wakewood, and we zoom in to see Patrick, Louise and an empty back seat.

So, we have a recently bereaved couple starting a new life in a rural setting. Practically writes itself, doesn't it? Of course the locals are going to be friendly but odd, and there'll be strange traditions involving everyone walking down the high street beating on primitive drums. Then,  sooner or later, our heroes will see something they shouldn't - on this occasion, a bizarre nocturnal ritual involving the birthing of a human being from some sort of clay sarcophagus. Because the locals are friendly, they will gradually be persuaded to reveal their shared secret - namely, their ability to bring the recently-deceased back to life for a period of three days.

I should probably come clean at this point and admit that I know bugger all about Pagan horror as a subgenre. I've never seen The Wicker Man and I don't particularly intend to; I'm sure there are other examples out there but off the top of my head, I can't name even one. With all that said, I found myself rather warming to the nameless variety of Paganism espoused by Wake Wood, based on mutual respect and support as it is. Despite the film's supernatural elements, for the most part, the film's horror is derived primarily from the acts of desperation that grief can cause even the most civilised members of society to commit. The denizens of Wakewood town are open, kindly people, and things only start to go wrong when the newcomers fail to grasp the seriousness of the rules that they themselves have internalised for generations.

It's all quite slow-moving and thoughtful for the most part, with a lovely performance by Timothy Spall as Arthur, Patrick's employer. Somewhere around the hour mark, however, the movie loses the courage of its convictions for a bit, and taking a brief and slightly tedious foray into slasher territory before it regains its previous ominous tone.

I have no idea what horror fans look for in a horror movie, so I'll say this: at no point did Wake Wood scare me. It's a nicely haunting little piece, though, quiet and thoughtful and frequently rather sad.

Definitely worth a look.

 

Hail Caesar! (2016)

Okay, it's confession time: much as I love the work of the Coen brothers, much of their work tends to make me feel just a little bit intellectually inadequate. I am used, let's be frank, to being the smartest person in the room, so I've never quite got over my shame at the fact that after around five viewings, I still don't have the first idea what The Big Lebowski is about. No Country For Old Men baffled me too, and I'm still not totally sure what was going on in Miller's Crossing. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy their films immensely, it's just that these days, even their frothier efforts tend to leave me wondering what hidden dimensions I might have missed.

Take Hail, Caesar!, their love letter to 1950s Hollywood. It's a delight from start to finish, ranging from gently amusing to flat-out, laugh-out-loud funny, but part of me still worries that the joke might be on me for missing something obviously allegorical. Goodness knows there's plenty of material there for allegory, as George Clooney's amiable hellraiser Baird Whitlock is stolen from the set of the titular Christian epic to be brainwashed by the Commies, but try as I might, I  couldn't quite work out what it's all supposed to mean.

What it mostly means, in any case, is a rattlingly good time that comes primarily in the form of a series of vignettes linked by the travails of hard-working fixer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin). We follow him as, for the sake of his beloved Capitol Pictures he attempts to keep any number of different balls in the air. Thus in addition to the situation Whitlock we have him attempting to find a husband for the pregnant star of the aquaballet, DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson, verging on self-parody), and to placate effete English director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) after the studio insists on casting amiable singing cowboy Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich, in what may prove his breakout role) in his frightfully mannered melodrama.

The Coens keep it fast-moving and playful, with a number of juicy cameos mixed in amongst the set-pieces. I'm always happy to see Tilda Swinton, and here we're given two of her as feuding twin gossip columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker. My favourite, however, was Frances McDormand, whose single scene is one I wouldn't dream of spoiling for you.

Wonderful fun, then - and if you ever tire of watching George Clooney pretending to be a bad actor, you're almost certainly tired of life - but I can't shake the sneaking suspicion there's something a little deeper going on. Still, this is one I'll always be happy to re-watch.

Unrelated, but have you seen the trailer for the Ghostbusters remake? I know I hold no love for the original, but I think I may have to give this one a shot. If nothing else, I can no longer complain that movies never star anyone who looks like me.