A Field in England

2013 mushroom movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: In the midst of a 17th Century Civil War, four men try to find a treasure in a field in England. Things get wacky.

With a unique rhythm and skimpy narrative with unclear character motivations and connections, this was tough sledding at first. Or plowing. I guess you'd plow in a field, not sled. The lovely black and white cinematography kept my interest, but it wasn't until I realized there was a sneaky sense of humor with this thing that I was able to fully invest. Slyly surreal before transforming into more wild psychotronic shenanigans, director Ben Wheatley seems to borrow from a lot of artsy oddball independent things made way before 2013 while ultimately making something that is refreshingly different.

References to human excretion, the literal unearthing of a character, violent palpitations, quirky dialogue, a quirky hypnosis, hallucinogenic drug trips. It's a strange story, but it's appropriately strange in quiet ways. It's unclear exactly what this thing is about. I suspect it's a parable, that each of the four characters represents something and that the treasure is something either very specific or not specific at all. I can't pinpoint exactly what any of those pieces might be though. I thought the performances were very good--Reece Shearsmith as the closest thing we have to a main character, an alchemist's apprentice; Ryan Pope as tough and constipated soldier Cutler; and Peter Ferdinando and Richard Glover who play characters who are either drunk or dopey or maybe both. Eventually, out pops (literally) Michael Smiley who, following a sequence where he gets all dressed up, has a grand moment where he gets himself all gussied up and strikes a pose in the dusty light. It's such a great shot.

There are lots of great shots of this field in England. I like how the characters are shot, especially when they're urinating, but the way the field is shot almost makes it something more than just land with some weeds on it. It almost becomes something living and breathing itself. This is all before things get especially wild during a sequence that contains lovely bits of black and white psychedelia. That made the warning at the beginning of this--of "flashing images" and "stroboscopic sequences"--make sense anyway.