The Witch - an original and creative 'horror' movie

What an absolutely joy it was to watch this stripped-back supernatural thriller.  Written and directed by the completely unknown Robert Eggers, The Witch is set in 17th century rural New England and tells a tale of a puritan family who are expelled from their community and try to live off the land by themselves.  The family are a God-fearing bunch, typical perhaps of the time, with patriarch William (played by Ralph Ineson - who was also Finchy in The Office) opening the film admonishing the elders of their exiled village for being insufficiently pious.  Notions of religion, righteousness and fear are foreboded to be strong themes throughout.

The opening scene of the family going alone shows eldest daughter Thomasin (Anna Taylor-Joy) playing with her young baby brother.  She closes her eyes for a moment, and when she reopens them baby Sam has vanished.  She looks to the woods beyond as the autumn air blows eerily around her, what force could have taken her brother?

For the next 70 minutes the film tells a story that's almost-but-not-quite a straight horror thriller with a devilish coven of witches preying on the innocence of these pioneers.  Almost, but not quite.  The overt super-naturalism of the film is expertly portrayed so as to always permit rational explanation to the outside observer.  Much much more so than a traditional horror thriller ever would.  We are shown a witch luring a teenage boy in the woods.  But are we?  Teenage boys' minds do think in a certain way.  Certain creatures are possessed and act as if supernaturally powerful - but are we seeing this, or are we seeing this through the eyes of a witchcraft-obsessed 17th century peasant?  Seen like this the film is as much exploration of 17th century attitudes to religion, fear of witchcraft, fear of sexuality, repression and stress as it is a horror movie.  Even the film's final 5 minutes - which when seen as a straight depiction of events surely confirms the horror of what has passed before it - are only seen from one point of view.  This is the point of view of a repressed 17th century peasant convinced of the existence of witches and their own piousness before god.  Why wouldn't they see the world like that?

I hope you can tell that I really enjoyed this film.  If it was just the story thought it wouldn't quite be enough to rave as much as I am.  The experience of the film comes from so many elements coming together.  Everything is beautifully lit with natural light.  The framing is as much a part of the storytelling as anything, as we try to separate out what we are being told through the eyes of the characters and what is 'real'.  Even the soundtrack works.  And it really shouldn't when you think about what it is.  If you were ask you to make a slightly lame ghost noise, I bet you would make a noise that's not far from the sound the carries over many of the otherworldly shots of the barren New England forest.  It shouldn't work, but in the context of everything else it works perfectly.

Though the film deals with occult subject matter and is on the surface about witches and demons and the like, it only has a 15 rating.  That's reasonable as at no point are there any jump scares and blood is kept to a minimum.  It's all about atmosphere, lighting, space, mist, austerity and fear of the unknown.  As a non-traditional horror film I would recommend it even to people who perhaps shy away from scary movies.  Really quite happy to have kicked my 2017 in film off with this little gem from 2016.

Rogue One - Star Wars episode Meh

The new reality of the Star Wars 'franchise' is upon us.  Staying true to the mission they set themselves when they first acquired the rights from Lucasfilm, Disney have delivered a second Star Wars film in as many years.  Just as they promised, rather than continuing the narrative arc set up in last year's The Force Awakens, they have dipped into the back story of Star Wars to tell a one-off tale.  Rogue One tells the story of how the plans for the Death Star (that what they used to know how to blow up the Death Star in the original film) came into the possession of the Rebel Alliance.  Could be interesting.  Is it though?

The honest truth is that I am struggling to find anything to say that's hugely positive or negative about Rogue One.  When I heard that they were going to focus on the story of where the Death Star plans come from, I was wondering if we might get some sort of spy thriller.  But instead they put together the most basic of passable action films, with a whole bucket load of fanboy-pleasing nods to the original trilogy.

The Follows Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) on her quest to recover the Death Star plans.  Her father is a scientist who created the Death Star, and out of some remorse for what he's done he gets information to the Rebels that the plans are ripe for stealing.  The story then goes from Point A, to Point B, then to Point C, following a group of bland characters who's past histories and relationships are talked about but never shown, who's motivations are assumed but not established, into action sequences that are technically excellent but rather soulless. It then ends in a way that's hardly in keeping with a 12A certificate.

It's a film that feels like it was made by a committee that wanted to check just enough Star Wars boxes to make the fanboys happy while at the same time telling just enough of a proper story to keep a general audience on board.  It's a very well made film, it's well shot with some nice action scenes, sparse comic moments and a story that moves with a good pace.  However the characters are paper thin and the plot absolutely linear.  More than any major film release I can remember, this feels like it was made primarily for the money rather than primarily to tell a story.  It feels like it was scripted by a bunch of fanboys sitting in a coffee shop in one afternoon, who wanted to heave in as many Star Wars references as possible while counting the cheques for Disney.

Two points here.  One is that I am a Star Wars nerd.  So I do notice things like how when the X-Wings are shooting at the Star Destroyers and the dialogue says they would target their shields, that they're actually shooting at the bits of the ships that generate the shields.  I accept your sympathies.  However that kind of stuff doesn't make Rogue One a good film.  It's the sort of icing on the cake that they should be including as a little Easter Egg for the total nerds amongst us, whereas it felt like that sort of thing was meant to be the whole point.  Second point is that "This is a Star Wars film - of course it should have Star Wars references, what's wrong with that?" - you might say.  On one level that's fair enough, but if that's the focus of the film  then that's extremely limiting on what can be done and everything suffers as a result.  In the end the production team spend too long working on CGI recreations of Grand Moff Tarken and not long enough developing Jyn Erso's character.

What will the next one do (because this time next year the next episode will have been and gone)?  Can they keep harking back so strongly to the originals?  The Force Awakens was a remake of the originals.  Rogue One is a story set around the originals.  Has anything else ever happened in the Star Wars universe other than the force and this bloody Death Star?! There is plenty of Star Wars fan fiction out there that doesn't revolve around the original trilogy, why not mine that for story ideas?  There's a lot of galaxy out there to explore.  C'mon Disney - take some risks!