A Field in England (2014)

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

This thing's a trip, in more ways than one. And yeah, when you see the warning at the start about fast-moving images and flashing lights, they're not kidding around.The plot is simple, or at least I thought it was. I might be missing something. It was the kind of movie where I thought there was a decent amount under the surface, in terms of things like symbolism and themes hidden in subtext, but not being British, knowledgeable about the English Civil War, or maybe just being a little bit stupid in general meant that I'm pretty certain a good part of the film went over my head.Thankfully, it had a ton of atmosphere, a good deal of suitably creepy moments, and some really impressive shots and sequences that I can see sticking with me. If I didn't know exactly what was going on, I didn't see it as a huge problem, as that might have been the director's intent. There's a whole lot of surreal imagery and strange, unexplained moments, so I believe it to be one of those movies that intentionally doesn't let you in on everything, because that adds to the mystery and general creepiness, in a way.Even if I didn't completely 'get' the movie, I still don't regret watching it. There was enough here to satisfy me on a purely visual and emotional level, and the short running time certainly helped too. If it had been much longer, it may have run the risk of becoming too repetitive or drawn out for me.It's not for everyone, and for segments of the film I even thought it might not be for me, but I think I liked this in the end. And of course, it's always nice to watch something different and unexpected every now and then.

In this saga, where it's set in the 17th century in rural England where a nervous man goes along with three others during the chaos of a civil war to try and locate the man who vexed or did some wrong to his master and once he comes upon this sorcerer of sorts (O'Neil is his name, played by a great British character actor, Michael Smiley, you've seen him before somewhere) who makes this man and the others dig in the dirt to find treasure that may likely not be there, it's all about its unique sense of the world through visuals. This is black and white, grimy and gritty, where men have to squat and take s***ts and may end up being stung by nettles (or already have various ailments since it's g-ddamn 17th century backwoods England), and the director is one for bringing out the artifice in this stylized world, how it is all a moving painting after all.For the first hour I was digging what is a fairly unique experience, with a filmmaker really in love with the kinds of films that Herzog and perhaps Tarkovsky too made in their prime (Aguirre and Andrei Rublev come to mind at first, especially Herzog with the moments where the characters pause to be frozen - but we know they're being frozen as they intentionally pose - for tableaux that are funny and disturbing, but paintings all the same). It's also wildly violent at times, and the shock of it is visceral but it's also done in such a way that we shouldn't be too repelled by it since it already goes hand in hand with everything else around these people.There are hallucinatory touches here and there - a moment of intense screaming from Whitehead, as he follows O'Neil into a tent and proceeds to scream for a reason we can't see or know exactly why (call it the wiles of a sorcerer I guess) leads to Whitehead walking out of the tent being led by a rope tied around him, and it's done in the sort of intense slow-motion long take that might make von Trier sit up and take notice. It's a massive moment in a movie that is meant to wow us with visual splendor over plot, which is fine... until the last half hour when it becomes *only* that. Wheatley is working from a script (written by someone else) so there is the semblance of a story, and the small cast makes it that we know who everyone is despite some (though certainly not all) of the dialog being that British that needs subtitles.But, know this before going in, this movie is weird. I mean like, weird-weird, the sort of weird that tests my thresh hold as someone who loves weird s***. I think the thing for me is the context: is it from the mushrooms that Whitehead scarfs down while squatting in the field more than halfway into this movie? What's with the, uh, fuzzy planet that he keeps seeing in the sky coming his way? And then Wheatley and his editors go completely daffy with cutting together and superimposing images like there's no tomorrow - there's actually a warning at the start of the film that there are intense strobe effects (guess Wheatley may not get too many epileptics coming up to him with Field in Englanfd posters) - and it all is impressive on the surface.... but at the end of it all, what's the point? I couldn't help but feel by the end of this that I wasted my time, even as I was impressed by the actors who really commit to this world, and it's a truly unique world that we feel immersed in, because there wasn't a good emotional through-line. That may sound like I'm not opening myself up to the experimentation or poetry but, believe me, I was. I left this somewhat cold, admiring it being a vision from someone really going for something daring, but not giving a squib for the people on screen - and by the last ten minutes especially it's squarely an exercise in style and ultra-violence (how a couple of characters die is especially graphic, I mean gratuitously so). A Field in England is like when your much hipper friend on facebook posts some obscure underground rock album that is supposedly one of the coolest/most hardcore things you've never heard before. And there may be a reason it's obscure.

Visually speaking Ben Wheatley's film bears strong links to Peter Watkins's groundbreaking CULLODEN (1964), which treated the epic battle between the English and Scots (1746) as if it were a contemporary news report. The stark black-and-white imagery of the conflict and its aftermath contrasted with the matter-of-fact narrative to illustrate the true horrors of battle.A FIELD IN ENGLAND is likewise shot in black-and-white, with grainy imagery of the English Civil War (1642-49) and its aftermath. There are no major battle-sequences (the film's budget would not extend to that), but Wheatley makes it clear why the deserters have abandoned the conflict in the interests of self-preservation. Cavaliers and Roundheads were quite literally fighting to the death; and none of the protagonists wanted to meet such a grisly fate.Matters take an unexpected turn, however, when the deserters encounter an Irish alchemist O'Neil (Michael Smiley) who forces them to seek out hidden treasure that he believes has been buried in a field. Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith) is quite literally reduced to an animal as he is tied to a leash and made to execute O'Neil's orders. Wheatley's narrative style also changes, as the film moves away from quasi- realist mode into a surrealistic sequence of images where cinematic style appears to seem more important than plot coherence (as other reviewers have noted).Or perhaps not. An alchemist professed to be able to transform base metal into gold, and by doing so had privileged access to the universe's darkest secrets. In the previous century John Dee had established a considerable reputation at the court of Queen Elizabeth I through his presumed knowledge of alchemy and the occult. By the mid-seventeenth century, however, the practice had been satirized in Ben Jonson's famous comedy THE ALCHEMIST (1610), and had subsequently lost a lot of its mystique.What A FIELD IN ENGLAND shows is the potentially destructive consequences of O'Neil's practices. The deserters are not only transformed into slaves, but the music of the spheres has also been challenged. The alchemist has dared to pry into divine knowledge and reduced the world to chaos as a result. No one is safe; in a series of shoot-outs the deserters try to kill him, and O'Neil responds in kind. Concepts such as "good" and "evil" no longer exist; the world has degenerated into a dog-eat-dog environment wherein only the fittest survive.This is a powerful antiwar message, made even more powerful when we realize that Wheatley's screenplay had been inspired by association with The Sealed Knot, the Civil War re-enactment society. A FIELD IN ENGLAND communicates a trans-historical perspective, making us aware of the sheer futility of war, whether practiced for real or simply played out for fun.

This movie is like Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" transported back to England in the middle 1660s. The acting, costumes, speech and action are all very good, excellent. The whole effect is what one would imagine the English Civil War period would be like. The film is abstract, metaphorical and profound in its character interaction. I felt I "was there", transported back in time. The story-line is meant to be obtuse and may put a lot of people off. It's difficult to understand. However, the overall effect is very good. I recommend this film to anyone who is into knowing something about what men were like in the middle 1600s in England. I also recommend this film to anyone who enjoys something that is not usual.