Much as I might be tempted.
Today's overlooked A/V owes a big thanks to Mr B, who pointed me to where Iain Rowan blogged about this film (and more owls -- awesome! [wait, not supposed to say that anymore; what did we come up with? Prodigious! I don't think it's going to work out though...]). Ahem.
Let's go back to a magical time: 1974. Okay, no so much magical as really really weird, especially when you consider British television. And not just scary PSAs, just really weird programs -- often aimed at kids! I give you Penda's Fen, which you can watch in its entirety online [so sorry the video freeze frames on an instance of animal cruelty! not intentional but I guess that will warn some of you away -- apologies!].
This is a film that would have trouble airing now in the States. Never mind that it deals with Elgar's Dream of Gerontius and Manichaeism (o_O) and homoeroticism, it also deals with the relationship between paganism and Christianity; not simply as atavistic past threatening its 'evolutionary' successor, but with a faith in the power of that pagan past and with a view of Christianity as a corrupt reflection of mechanised modernity.
Wow.
Among the things that would doubtless give many fundies apoplexy, there's the suggestion that Joan of Arc might have been a follower of the Old Religion. The titular pagan Anglo-Saxon king offers a positive model, too. One of the real knock-outs of the film are the dream sequences which are truly unsettling in a very simple way. Two words: uncanny angel! Really creepy! I suspect this film alone may have warped a generation. Wonderful!
As always, catch up on all the recommendations over at Sweet Freedom.
And yes, it's the last day to vote in the Preditors & Editors Poll...
4 comments:
Warped?Me?
If the shoe fits [your massively warped hoof] wear it with pride, Mr B! You have been an instigator.
And isn't it just lovely that the video freeze frames on the one rather horrible and doubtless real instance of animal cruelty? >_<
Shall have to look. However, the US children's programming of that time still had a certain psychoactive quality, more often than not...and this, perhaps edited, might well've been offered by Kukla, Fran and Ollie on the CBS CHILDREN'S FILM FESTIVAL on weekend mornings...
I think even the horrors of Sid & Marty Kroft's offerings aren't a patch on the truly surreal things Mr B has been pointing out to me -- I do mean truly warped in the best possible way. I was totally born in the wrong country!
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