April 4th, 2019
Written by: Amy Jump
Starring: Julian Barratt, Peter Ferdinando, Richard Glover
Budget: £316,000
Quote: "Then I shall become it! I shall consume all the ill fortune which you are set to unleash. I shall chew up all the selfish scheming and ill intentions that men like you force upon men like me, and bury it in the stomach of this place!"
Trivia: The film was released on 5 July 2013 on multiple platforms simultaneously, including cinemas, home media and video on demand. It was also broadcast on Film4 on the day of its release.
A Field in England. The movie that answers the question, what would happen if Alexandro Jodorowky made a historical movie about the English Civil War? It's incredible that the filmmakers were able to create something so vile yet beautiful and enchanting with only a relatively small budget (around $400,000 US). The film incorporates a plethora of visual and auditory effects to build the surreal hallucinatory feel of the film and like Jodorowky's movies, the film uses surrealism to tell a story. However, while Jodorowky used surrealism primarily to explore the subconscious of the individual and humanity, the filmmakers of A Field in England use surrealism to explore a historical event. Upon first viewing, the film may seem like a bizarre collection of psychedelic images and incoherent events as a four bearded guys wander around a field killing each other. However, this is one of the few times in my life that my history degree comes in handy. What this film is, is actually a fairly straightforward retelling of the First English Civil War. But if you're not a history nut like me, it's also a pretty great way to spend ninety trippy minutes.
In the midst of The First English Civil War, a priest named Whitehead tries to escape the battle and is saved by a soldier named Cutler. The two men then come upon a drunk and his dimwitted friend and the four proceed to search for a mythic alehouse. Cutler drugs the drunk and his friend with magic mushrooms and takes the group a field where he forces them to unbury his master, an alchemist named O'Neill. We discover that O'Neill was a rival alchemist to Whitehead's alchemist master and that O'Neill has brought them to the field to locate a treasure. He puts all of them under his power and tortures Whitehead into revealing where the treasure is buried. Eventually, the dimwitted friend is accidentally killed by Cutler and then Cutler is killed by O'Neill as a punishment. Whitehead and the drunk decide to overpower O'Neill after Whitehead eats a copious amount of psychedelic mushrooms. The drunk sacrifices himself which allows Whitehead to sneak up behind O'Neill and shoot him in the head. The film ends with the three men (Whitehead, the drunk, and the imbecile) standing in the same place they met with the battle noises continuing around them.
The movie is shot entirely in black and white and throughout the film, the filmmakers use various visual and auditory effects to heighten the surrealistic aspects of the film. The jerky camera movements, rapid film edits, mirrored kaleidoscopic images, and disruptive garbled noises, all combined with the movie's surrealism, seem to tap into a darker part of the human psyche. Juxtaposed with these images and sounds are also beautiful close shots of insects, nature, and tranquil pastoral scenes. Visually, the movie does great job of mixing beauty with the macabre.
The surrealist elements of the story may seem distracting and unnecessary. For example, upon arriving at the field, the men pull O'Neill out of the ground by ropes where he had been attached to a underground pike. Whitehead literally becomes a divining rod, running around like a search dog for the spot that he instinctively understands to be the treasure spot. Whitehouse vomits up runes at one point... There is a black hole that seems to be getting ready to gobble up existence... and of course the insane amount of magic mushrooms that are consumed throughout the film and the filmmakers impressions on that state of mind. It is trippy, but it's not just weird for the sake of being weird (although there is nothing wrong with that!). The movie is a surrealist telling of the First English Civil War.
Warning - History Lesson: The First English Civil War was primarily a war between Royalists who supported King Charles I and the Parliamentarians who fought against divine rule, advocating for a constitutional monarchy (a check on the king's absolute power). At first, the battles were primarily politically motivated, but as the war dragged on it began to transform into a more religious war. Most Royalists were members of the Anglican Church aka The Church of England (which split from the Catholic Church) as they were advocating for absolute monarchical power and saw Charles I as their divinely appointed political and religious leader. Conversely, most Parliamentarians were Puritans (or Presbyterians and other smaller denominations) who wished to "purify" the Church of England by removing all Catholic elements and advocated a personal relationship with God. As you can see the religious beliefs had a symbiotic relationship with the political beliefs--Anglicans who saw the King as their religious leader advocated for absolute monarchical power and Puritans who distrusted religious hierarchy advocated for limited monarchical power. As the war progressed, the Parliamentarians would eventually overpower the Royalists, take Charles I as hostage, and power would be divided up among the various Parliamentarian groups.
So what does all this have to do with A Field In England? Whitehead represents the Puritan response in the war. While at first he is timid (even cowardly), by the end of the film, his religious beliefs have become militarized and he is now ready to take his place at the vanguard of fighting. O'Neill therefore represents the royalist in general and King Charles I in particular. He is brash and arrogant claiming both earthly and divine power. His absolute power over the group is eventually squashed by the Puritans after Whitehead gives a religiously impassioned speech: "Then I shall become it! I shall consume all the ill fortune which you are set to unleash. I shall chew up all the selfish scheming and ill intentions that men like you force upon men like me, and bury it in the stomach of this place!" The drunk and imbecile represent the common folks of England which would switch sides whenever it benefits them (which the characters did in the movie). It is only when Whitehead, as the Puritan, begins to rise up and assert his religious zealotry that the commoners are willing to die for his side.
Lastly, the filmmaker's surrealism also helps to highlight the mystical qualities of English history. While England is known for being a dry today, it has some pretty magical elements to its history. Stonehenge and the various ruins that dot the landscape are testament to its magical past. Part of the film was also inspired by the director's discover that the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms was common practice in the 17th century... Sorry for the history rant, but I fucking loved this movie. Definitely give it a watch!
...what's your thoughts?
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