My Review of ‘The Wicker Man’ (1973)
Okay, I’m trying to conjure the right words to talk about this movie. And you should know that this review will be FILLED with SPOILERS. Because that’s the only way I can truly express my thoughts and feelings about the thing.
I’ll just give you what will hopefully be a concise, coherent description of a somewhat surreal plot.
Okay, so this copper in the UK gets a letter claiming there’s a missing girl who’s been missing forever and her mum’s worried, but no one will help her, so she wrote the letter in this desperate attempt to find the missing girl. There’s a photo enclosed of a kid so cute, they should use her as a poster child for adoption services or some other child-related thing.
And the copper (who’s played by pre-Breaker Morant Edward Woodward) (BTW, Breaker Morant is a great movie) (just saying) takes it upon himself to find this wee lass. So he goes to this place, which is on an island way out in the middle of God-knows-where. He flies his own police-emblemed plane there. All by himself.
Um, can you already see a red flag here?
So, he gets there all alone and manages to talk his way onto the island, even though the residents ain’t exactly welcoming him with open arms. And when he starts looking for the girl, everyone’s like, “Who?” Never heard of her. Even her own sweet mum never seen her. Don’t know her.
Okay, we have a mystery with a stupid detective, who I should mention is a zealously devout motherfucking Christian. So, after a while, he notices that this place is more than a bit weird. I mean, they’re like worshipping phallic symbols, and there’s all this talk about penises and balls (or bollocks) and foreskins. Even among young children in a classroom! Well, our uptight upright copper takes major offense to this.
To cut a really long, convoluted story down to a relatively short one, when the copper meets up with the leader of the community (played by the incomparable Christopher Lee), it turns out that they’re able to sustain a living by growing the island’s apparently-famous apples because his grandfather (the leader’s, not the copper’s) embraced the spirit, customs, and practices of the indigenous island people. This belief and way of life, he says, guarantees the community a bountiful harvest, despite the island’s (occasionally implied) inhospitable farming conditions.
Ah, I thinks, the theme here is, um, the conflict between a community of nature-loving, locavores who respect indigenous cultures headed up by a Tall, Dark, and Handsome nutter versus the “onward Christian soldiers” approach of a British colonial sort. But, no, it’s not. It’s certainly not the only theme.
That theme can be inferred to an extent given the cultural zeitgeist during the time the movie was made. And the relentlessly 70s music, which kind of suggests the divide between straight culture and counter-culture. The cheesy soundtrack would have been funny, if this film didn’t strike me at one point like a cross between The Stepford Wives and The Island of Doctor Moreau.
Basically, what’s happening here is that someone is being played. I’ll bet you can guess who, but the question is, why?
Now, apart from my doubts that a police officer would be this stupid unprepared for hostility from a large crowd of highly unsympathetic people — on AN ISLAND — (and even though you could write that off as a kind of Judeo-Christian/colonial arrogance and assumptions that a badge gives you superpowers) there’s the question of such a crowd being able to pull off this major scam without anyone fucking up and doing/saying the wrong thing. But let’s assume that’s possible, because maybe it is. It’s amazing and scary what large crowds of people are capable of believing, given the right conditions. Think terrorist cells and cults. Whole social movements. People in crowds can do both great and terrible things, without a second’s hesitation.
What this movie is really about is blind zealotry and how badly it can warp one’s perceptions. In the end, the copper’s zealotry gets him killed (horribly) and ostensibly, as a sacrifice to … whoever these people believe in. But, in fact, it is no sacrifice at all, because no one suffered a loss from his death (other the dead copper, of course). In fact, they seemed pretty damned happy to let someone else do their suffering for them.
And that makes them hypocrites. Besides, not only did the island community suffer no great loss from murdering an outsider they didn’t respect, but the creepily charismatic leader received a great benefit: one less copper to question his authority. I wonder if anyone ever considered making a sequel depicting the island after the harvest continues to fail.
Directed by Robin Hardy
Produced by Peter Snell
Screenplay by Anthony Shaffer
PS: Many of you will no doubt enjoy the sight of Britt Ekland undulating naked around a room, banging on walls and furniture to the rhythm of more annoying 70s music.
PPS: And, in case I didn’t make it clear, this film may not be appropriate for those who don’t enjoy watching someone act stupid, then get burned to death. Expect plenty of violence, nudity, and a nightmarish end.
PPPS: Get this. Wikipedia calls this a “folk horror musical”. That’s a first for me! 🙂
And I’d give this four stars, because it is suspenseful and does make a serious point. Except … I mean, ewwww!!! 🙂
PPPPS: On the plus side, Ingrid Pitt’s in it! 🙂
