So, the other night, I was hanging out with my boyfriend. We were having a lovely night, and decided that it would be fun to watch some movies. He had a few NetFlix envelopes on his table, so we decided to watch them. What we got was a lovely, fun, thought-provoking double feature, with "The Wicker Man" and "The Wicker Man."
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN EITHER VERSION OF "THE WICKER MAN", AND FULLY INTEND TO, AND DO NOT LIKE SPOILERS, THEN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER. Thank you.We started, as is logical, with the original "Wicker Man", made in 1973. The story is simple. A British police officer goes to the small island of Somersisle, off the coast of Scotland, to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. According to the letter he had recieved, this girl, Rowan, had been missing for almost a year. (One wonders why it took so long for anyone to notify the police of her disappearance, but oh well.) He gets trouble from the locals right from the moment he lands his plane, being told that he couldn't park his plane where he did, and being refused a dingy so he could get to solid ground. When he shows the picture of the missing girl, the locals (a group of little old men) all say that they've never seen the girl before in their lives. However, they do direct the officer to the home that she apparently came from. The woman who should be Rowan's mother also says that she doesn't know the girl in the picture, and shows him around her home.
Later that night, the officer finds his way to the local pub and inn, and asks for a meal and a room to stay for the night. This is where the movie starts to get really odd, because when the landlord's daughter pokes her head out to show the officer to his room and give him his meal, the whole pub breaks out into song, basically talking about how she's slept with nearly every guy in the room, and will totally sleep with the officer, too, if he wants her to. Seriously. This girl is literally the town bicycle, and instead of seeming offended or upset, her father just sits there and smiles, in apparent agreement with everything the song is saying. I had no idea this Hammer Horror flick was going to be a musical. o.0 At any rate, the officer takes his dinner in a back room, where he comments to the Bicyc--I mean, Landlord's Daughter that the food is of a very low quality, for an island known for its fine crops. She offers him only vague explinations, then leaves him to eat. That night, she attempts to seduce him, but he resists.
The next morning starts with a small exchange between the officer and the landlord's daughter, where it is revealed that he is a devout Christian, unmarried, and a virgin, waiting for his wedding night. The landlord's daughter smiles at him then, and says, "Well then, you won't want to be here for our May Day celebration, a man like you." He apparently does not take her words to heart and continues his investigation.
He comes to a schoolyard, where we get our second musical number. A man is leading a song, while a group of boys, adolescents and young teens, hold red and white ribbons, standing around a Maypole. Our officer watches them sing, listening to the song, and when the boys finally start wrapping the Maypole, he walks to the schoolhouse, looking disgusted. Inside, a female schoolteacher is leading the lesson for the day, teaching a group of young girls. As the officer approaches, she asks, "Now, who can tell me what the Maypole represents?" and when two young girls chorus, "Phallic symbol, phallic symbol!", the officer clearly snaps. From this point on in the movie, he is no longer acting as a police officer, no matter how hard he tries to conduct himself that way. He storms into the classroom, clearly having a fit over hearing two girls use the word "phallic", and manages to conduct himself almost appropriately as he questions the girls and the teacher about Rowan. Eventually he is asked to leave by the teacher, and as she sends him on his way, she tells him, "You won't want to be here during our May Day celebration. You'd best get going." Instead, our Genius decides to question Lord Somersisle himself about the goings-on on this island.
Lord Somersisle (portrayed by a young Count Dooku) is a charismatic, calm, intelligent man, who is all too pleased to answer the Officer's questions about the island. He reveals that the people on the island have always followed the old ways, have always been Druids of some kind, and when his great-grandfather took over the island for agriculture, he let them keep that part of their history. It keeps them happy, and as the generations of Somersisle men took over the family business, they began to follow the local's Druidic ways, as well. This is the point where the Officer clearly snaps. "Your father raised you to be PAGAN!" he snaps at Lord Somersisle, and the conversation just goes downhill from there. After he leaves, the Officer (who I swear has a name, I just don't think he mentions it more than twice) goes to the local library to do research on May Day traditions. Upon reading that when crops did poorly, a sacrifice was often made, he decides to crash the May Day celebration the next day, and that's where things go downhill (for him).
Our Officer first knocks out one of the men who was going to lead the parade leading to the ritual grounds and takes his costume, a Punch outfit which covers his body and his face. When he sees Rowan, he runs out of the parade, ripping the mask off, and cuts her free, telling her that she was going to be safe, that he was going to help her. She takes off with him, leading him to what he assumes is a safe place on the island. Instead, she takes him to a beautiful cliffside vista, where all the rest of the island is waiting for them. She runs into the arms of Lord Somersisle, the High Priest of this ritual, asking, "Did I do it right?" and recieves assurances that she did it
perfectly. The Officer is then informed that he is to be their sacrifice for better crops, as he joined the ritual of his own free will, went to Rowan of his own free will, and followed her (and came to them) again of his own free will. They strip him of the Punch suit, dress him in a plain white shift, and drag him to the ritual site, where a giant wicker man is waiting for him, filled with various livestock. They load him into the Wicker Man with relative ease, close it up, and start to burn it, singing a song as he spouts off the 23rd Psalm and yells out at the top of his lungs about how they were all going to burn in hell, how God was punishing them by making their crops fail, and so on. In his final moments, too weak to yell from the smoke inhalation, he prays to God to accept him into heaven, and then we cut to the singing Druids as we hear him screaming, dying. The story ends on that lovely note.
Now, to contrast, the modern version, with Nicholas Cage. Basically, this is the same story, with a few adjustments, of course. Nicholas Cage plays a California police officer who recieves a letter from his ex-fiancee, Willow, who left him five years ago. In her letter, she tells him that her daughter, Rowan, has gone missing, and though she knows they're not on the best of terms, he's the only person she can think of who can help her find her daughter again. The Officer, once again being some kind of Genius, drops everything and goes to Washington, to the island of Somersisle, to help his former love.
The story from there is pretty much the same as it was in the originial. The officer meets with a group of locals when he lands, but these are all women. As a matter of fact, the only people he really gets to interact with are women. This island, Somersisle, is home to a feminist bee-cult, which only keeps men around for reproduction and hard labor. Everything in the original movie that showed a rich, lively Pagan community has been changed around to show a creepy, feminist, bee-obsessed cult. However, in this movie, the Officer recieves no warnings about what's to come, and indeed, when he tries to leave, the (female, of course) locals do everything within their power to keep him there. He tries to save Rowan, but, like the original, she leads him right back to those who would kill him, and boy, is he killed. The women lay him down and break his legs, violently, and drag him to the ritual site, where a giant Wicker Man is standing. (Can you see where this is going?) They tie a rope to his feet and drag him, upside down, up to the top of the Wicker Man, where a trapdoor closes and traps him in the head of the Wicker Man. Then, as the women surrounding it chant, "The drone must die!", little Rowan runs forward and lights the tinder beneath it. Our Officer dies screaming, but with no praying, no religious ranting, or anything else of the sort.
Now then.
I heard two things about the remake of "The Wicker Man". One friend told me, "Don't ever watch it. You'll be so pissed off. They portray witches as creepy feminists who only keep men around for making babies!", and the other told me, "Oh man, it's sooooo creepy.... they've got this obsession with bees, and.... ugh, it's just creepy." I was ready to be either offended or creeped out by the second. I was neither. If anything, I was amused, but I think that was because I had the first movie to preface it with.
The first movie did not scare me in the least. It did not creep me out, it did not disturb me, it did nothing of the sort. I watched this movie, and no matter how I tried to look at it, it always came down to the same thing for me: The Officer was a damn idiot. He let his religious beliefs get in the way of his professionalism. He was warned multiple times that he would not want to be on the island when May Day came around. He stayed. He allowed himself to be blinded by righteousness when he saw people worshipping in the Old Ways, and sought to convert them to Christianity by saving Rowan from a horrible fate. I honestly had absolutely no problem with watching him burn to death at the end. I mean, as a Pagan myself, I wouldn't sacrifice anything living for any purpose. I just can't bring myself to do it. However, having watched the situation unfold, having seen everything that led up to the Officer's death, I felt absolutely no pity for him, and did not feel bad that as I watched that scene, I could only say, "Yeah, I'm actually okay with this." It almost felt to me like a kind of documentary on modern Druidism and the persecution it recieves from non-believers. As far as the remake goes, if I'm offended by it at all, I'm offended that anyone could think that a psycho feminist bee-cult is associated at ALL with witches and paganism. I saw absolutely NO parallels there at all.
So overall, I enjoyed the movies. Honestly. I much preferred the original to the remake, though. I even want it for my own personal movie collection.
This was probably a crappy, crappy review. Oh well. I'll get better as I go on.
