It’s Beltane tonight, and as the fires burn on the hills, we’re shining our spotlight on films which bring together the old ways and the new, exploring the contradictions inherent in our civilisation. We’ve got mystery, magic, horror and humour in this collection, plus a little something for the kids.
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| The Wicker Man |
The Wicker Man - BBC iPlayer
One of few films to actually feature Beltane festivities of a sort (though it was filmed in winter and the actors had to put ice in their mouths to keep their breath from being visible when they exhaled), Robin Hardy’s evergreen tale of the clash between Christian and Pagan values, played out as an elaborate game, delivers comedy and horror in equal measure. Most importantly, it is spot on in its observation of the ongoing clash of cultures in which the experience of life in the British Isles is rooted. Top line performances from Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward, with a fine supporting cast, make this worth watching again and again.
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| Wolfwalkers |
Wolfwalkers - Apple TV
A child-friendly take on the clash between Christian colonialists and Irish people steeped in the old ways, Wolfwalkers draws on the traditions of woodcut art and Celtic knotwork to produce its unforgettably beautiful animation. It’s a tale of forbidden friendship between a hunter’s daughter who is supposed to be confined to the city and a wild Irish girl who runs free in the forest and guards an ancient secret. There’s a properly mean villain and the wolves of the title can also be scary, but this is a film about overcoming fear, with powerful lessons for small viewers and plenty to thrill them besides.
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| Hagazussa |
Hagazussa – A Heathen’s Curse - Shudder, Amazon Prime, Apple TV
The old customs that we now see as relics or revivals were the daily stuff of life for many people in Europe for centuries after those people ceased to hold power, and Lukas Fiegelfeld’s haunting, sometimes psychedelic drama imagines what it might have been like for a long practitioner despised by a community devoted to the new way. Aleksandra Cwen’s Albrun is a young woman used to mistreatment, finding social connection with animals, trying to raise the infant daughter who might be heir to her traditions, but nothing is easy for her in this intimate yet widely echoing depiction of the end of a world.
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| Excalibur |
Excalibur - Sky Store, Amazon Prime, Google Play
There is a great deal to be discovered in John Boorman’s legendary film, but its subtextual exploration of the coming together of ancient and modern ways of being is perhaps the real fount of its power. When Arthur marries Guinevere on Easter Sunday, the use of flowers and the woodland ride remind us that this is also Beltane, an auspicious time for weddings. Arthur and his knights devote themselves to Christ yet look to Merlin for wisdom, whilst he in turn is ready to let go and issue in a new age; but Morgana, perhaps looking further ahead, wants her share of power.
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| Frewaka Photo: Courtesy of Locarno Film Festival |
Fréwaka - Shudder, Amazon Prime, Apple TV
Aislinn Clarke, director of this eerie modern tale, said that she perceives the Na Sidhe as a folkloric phenomenon created by the Irish in parallel to their own experience of being colonised, so they could find a locus for internalised guilt. That concept echoes through her intentionally uncomfortable film about a carer with a modern sensibility and the old woman she goes to look after, who believes deeply in the faerie folk. As supernatural, psychological and metaphorical elements intertwine, old ideas feel very much alive, lingering in small objects and unconsidered rituals, each world enclosed in the other.
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| The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future Photo: Courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival |
The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future - Google Play, Apple TV, Amazon Prime
Stepping away from Europe for a moment, one finds similar ideas, differently rendered, in Francisca Alegria’s multi-layered fable. The titular cows here are wise animals, steeped in suffering and this in empathy, especially in their understanding of motherhood. They provide reassurance as a human mother comes into conflict with a child whose femininity she doesn’t understand, and with her own mother who, being dead, she thought had gone away. It is a story full of the abundance of spring, yet alert, like the others here, to encroaching change, and to the need to draw on the ways of the past in order to cope with the future.
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| The Last Sacrifice |
The Last Sacrifice - Shudder, Amazon Prime, Apple TV
A bizarre, ritualistic murder carried out in a sleepy Cotswolds village in 1945. Another, curiously similar murder in 1875. Rumours of witchcraft and black magic. A celebrity detective, a famous anthropologist, and...Tinky Winky? Rupert Russell’s documentary really does have it all. It explores the roots of folk horror cinema, takes in widely believed supernatural events like the case of the Highgate vampire, and incorporates testimony from everyone who’s anyone in the world of the occult, including people who wouldn’t normally be seen dead together. A perfect seasonal treat.
