 |
| From https://thetelltalemind.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/the-witches1.jpg |
Director: Cyril Frankel
Screenplay: Nigel Kneale
Cast: Joan Fontaine (as Gwen
Mayfield); Kay Walsh (as Stephanie Bax); Alec McCowen (as Alan Bax); Ann Bell (as
Sally Benson); Ingrid Boulting (as Linda Rigg)
Synopsis: After a traumatising end to her career in colonial
Africa, Gwen Mayfield (Fontaine)
moves to a small rural village to become the schoolmistress. It becomes obvious
that a malignant power is within the community, practicing witchcraft and hexing
anyone who goes against their wishes, and as Mayfield uncovers more, her own
life and soul is under threat as much as anyone else's.
 |
| From http://img.rp.vhd.me/4777641_l1.jpg |
With The Witches, I cannot help but find the reason finally why I've
been left cold to some Hammer films. I
enjoyed The Witches immensely but
the problem is here. Many of them have a depiction of the British as the
passionless and passive which I find disappointing. Even though conservative
values exist in many other horror films, normalcy usually winning against the
transgression against them, you can still find the untamed and the chaotic
bubbling away under the surface in many of these films even if it's an unintentional
subtext. A few of the Hammer films
I've seen have suffered from the normalacy you're supposed to be on the side on
being a stereotype with no depth, where the working class are two dimensional yokels
and anyone a class higher is the kind of figure you have satirised in a sketch
from Monty Python. Where the heroes
especially the English ones dangerous edge towards the stereotypes of British
culture, that for all their connoisseur knowledge of wines and the occult
they're the middle class at their most blandest. I've found that other British
horror films, The Wicker Man (1973) an
obvious one but even films I've unfairly dismissed like Death Line (1972), have far more fascinating and rich depictions of
the British when they're good or memorable, where even the grimy streets have a
charm and vitality to them to match the character actors onscreen. If it wasn't
for how dynamic and talented actors likes Christopher
Lee and Peter Cushing were, I
can't even find pleasure in siding with the Satanists or evil force as they're
as in danger of being reduced to the equivalent of a bland cheese and wine
party as well, and its not a surprise some of the most rewarding Hammer films are either very different
from the others or have Lee and/or Cushing in them.
 |
| From http://film.thedigitalfix.com/protectedimage.php ?image=JohnWhite/witch1.jpg_26092013&width=550 |
This is a problem with that, when
you're supposed to sympathise with those representing normalcy, you don't necessarily
sympathise with the villains instead but feel it come off as a detraction. With
The Witches thankfully this doesn't
completely undermine the film but it does leave it with flaws. The beginning
sequence, with Mayfield in African being terrified by an African witchdoctor,
has a sweltering and panicked atmosphere already that makes it stand out,
making the change to the village for the rest of the film jarring for many
reasons. (It also includes a surprise cameo by a very young Rudolph Walker; I know of him as the far
more older, world weary policeman working under an incompetent senior inspector
played by Rowan Atkinson in The Thin Blue Line (1995-6)). When you
get to the village, entrenched fully into it, the normalcy of the cherub faced school
kids Mayfield teaches and the housewives gathering around the charity second
hand stalls feel like a curse of lifelessness in itself. It's supposed to be
the good thing against the evil witches, but as someone who's seen documentary
footage from this era and earlier, there's so much absent in these humble, quaint
depictions you find especially in the Hammer
films that it becomes slightly detracting here. Were it not for the beautiful
English countryside, it's not a surprise people got bored in this village and
turned to witchcraft. There's the possibility that, considering the secret behind the witchcraft coven, that this
is on purpose as a social comment, but the kids are so angelically bland that
it's probably not the case.
 |
| From http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/AndreiShareTheFiles/ TheWitches1967DVDRipXviD-KamuiX0034.png |
The Witches is still entertaining regardless of this, and when this
problem is contradicted by the content of the film itself, things get remarkably more
interesting. Returning back in the season, Nigel
Kneale wrote the screenplay. You can detect the same mind behind the Quatermass television and film
adaptations, here explaining the possibilities of witchcraft through a then-modern
and intellectual mindset. If he had added a few more of the eccentricities and
character fleshing out you find in his Quatermass
work a large deal of my issues with The
Witches would be gone immediately. There are pockets of tantalising things instead
that are very watchable. A standout for this is Kay Walsh as Stephanie Bax, a writer and scholar who's an older,
no-nonsense woman who dresses in suit clothes and explains the possibilities of
witchcraft with the naturalness of a modern intellectual discussing a
sociological issue. [SPOILER WARNING] When its revealed she's the main
antagonist, the film manages to bring out a shining gem of an idea where it's
the rational intellectual, a charismatic woman at that, who's using black
magic. With the intention of using a fourteen year old girl she's feels is a
worthless imbecile to become youthful again, Ingrid Boulting who's mix of childlike behaviour and physical
appearance brings up a troubling sexual mutability to the character, Bax has no
issue in claiming no difference between an ancient magical text and atomic
energy, turning the idea of occultism on its head in the process in a
fascinating way. It does lead to some silly events at a Satanic orgy, with worm
eating and the least expected choreographed dance scene possible in context,
but this blackly humorous idea does stand out as a shining moment.[SPOILER
WARNING END]
 |
| From http://www.cineoutsider.com/reviews/pix/w/wi/witches4.jpg |
The intrigue and suspense that
takes place, including Mayfield finding herself disorientated and placed in a
nursing home away from the village, is interesting especially for the central
period where the plot does something different, having the protagonist lost of
memory and having to pick up where she was from the beginning. Fontaine did grow on me, playing the
at-first ineffectual schoolmistress that shows more and more nerve and courage hidden
behind her bold hairstyle and clothes as the stakes around her become much more
troubling. This was her last feature film and she's clearly involved with it
with conviction, helping the film by making sure this protagonist isn't bland. How
the film resolves itself is through a single, simple thing that should sound
anticlimax on paper but comes off as another inspired moment from a Nigel Kneale script, where rather than
the plain and average characters you usually get in films like this who stumble
through a situation, an act of intelligence wins out done at the right moment.
Technical Detail:
One thing I can never find any
criticisms of in Hammer films
especially when they're in colour is their visual appearance. Low budget films,
they yet can be eye-popping when everything clicks. It came as an advantage
when they added blood to the horror stories, cementing their reputation, and in
The Witches you have plenty of
examples to choose from, the lush English countryside where even the sheep
fields have a grit to them to the almost psychedelic colours of the Satanic
orgy near the end.
Abstract Spectrum: None
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
Nothing to detail.
Personal Opinion:
Still showing the traits I'm not
a fan of in Hammer, The Witches has grown on me as I've
typed this review up. Not the best it could've been but still immensely entertaining.
No comments:
Post a Comment