A Field in England (Film4, 2013)
“Open up and let the Devil in,” says an antagonist unaware of the fact that he just summed up his own story in one brooding line…
Upon the lukewarm tides of Ben Wheatley’s recent outing, High-Rise (2015), let’s return to his earlier intoxicant, A Field in England (2013). Anchored by a haunting duality between its main characters and a powerful aesthetic appeal in its black-and-white cinematography and much more, this overlooked pleasure has a lot to offer.
Sometime during the English Civil War, a group of fleeing soldiers escape the chaos of a raging battle and wander the surrounding countryside in search of an alehouse. Alas, they never find it, and what ensues is a spiraling descent into madness as an unassuming stretch of land begins to blur the line between empty field and purgatorial void. This is where the film shines, in its arsenal of hallucinatory directing and editing flourishes – characters pose as tableaux, laying out the subsequent events as a type of cinematic painting before they even occur in real time; crucial scenes often play out in super slow-motion or diced-up chronology; comedy juts out unexpectedly. These elements are among Wheatley’s bag of tricks and melting pot of genres that add to the film’s visual mastery.
Two particular scenes alone earn A Field in England its gold medal for highbrow spectacle. One in which Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith) – our timid, intellectual protagonist – emerges from a tent entirely changed, dominated by his master with a rope tied around his torso, and is so fervently complemented by a visceral soundscape and Shearsmith’s warped grin, that it should go down as one of the most unsettling sequences ever put to screen. The other is a mushroom-fueled kaleidoscope of psychedelic insanity that shows the characters and the film itself entirely shaped and broken down by the limbo they are in. It’s a trip sequence for the books. One is reminded of the bad trip in a cemetery from Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969), except A Field in England’s is even more confounding and epileptic.
A Field in England (Film4, 2013)
But that’s not to say that the characters are no fun. The League of Gentleman’s Shearsmith delivers a stellar performance as the aptly named Whitehead, with his pseudo-Shakespearean ramblings and startling character arc. His master and nemesis, O’Neill (Michael Smiley), shows up as a mysterious and stone-cold “alchemist,” essentially the Devil of this film’s domain. A calmly homicidal Smiley (known for a handful of Wheatley and Edgar Wright works) gives this antagonist a presence that dominates most of the film and ushers forth the folklore elements that will come to define an otherwise period-piece-on-a-budget trajectory.
Most of the distinctly British humor – at once brash, clever, and tangential – comes from the supporting characters, played by the wide-ranging talents of Richard Glover, Peter Ferdinando, and Ryan Pope. Physical and fecal comedy, dim-witted asides and brilliant use of folk tunes and pub shanties all combine to create a rather disturbing element of humor and unsentimental lightness amongst a hellish landscape. If the lighthearted children’s song “Ring Around the Rosie” scoring a scene in which an enslaved human being is pursued through a field like a dog on a leash isn’t brilliantly depraved enough for you…
But in the wake of beloved Wheatley films like Kill-List (2011) and Sightseers (2012), this one feels more like a pure exercise in style than a lasting mark on his oeuvre. Satisfying and enigmatic it certainly is, but an over-emphasis on visual assault and breathtaking aesthetic choices undermines its narrative, which is more of a framework than an actual plotline. As a result the characters become archetypes, barely fleshed out beyond their convenient placement within the film’s events (Whitehead excluded). They might as well remain standstill caricatures while Shearsmith and Smiley take all the screen time, but that’s more a criticism of the script than of the performances themselves, which are all quite wonderful.
What we get in this deliciously monochromatic film is something akin to Nicholas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising (2009), in which a stylized New World morphs into an earthly Hell that physically and mentally brutalizes the characters onscreen. A Field in England, however, proves more exciting and enjoyable than the stark Refn-isms we’ve come to expect nowadays. Still, Wheatley doesn’t wholly escape the overshadowing voyeurism of his cinematography. Perhaps a small price to pay while attempting to depict a surreal environment, but a price that may keep the film from being a well-rounded cinematic experience nevertheless, rather acting as a nicely baffling interlude between the auteur’s other films. A shame, because it deserves a lot more attention than it gets, even if it tends to have one foot in the realm of style-over-substance.
A Field in England (Film4, 2013)
In short, A Field in England is an explosive sensory experience that compensates with some truly spellbinding, awe-inducing sequences for what it lacks in narrative coherence. The filmmakers edit and mise-en-scene their way to something of a beautiful monstrosity, and whether it’s for better or for worse, this elusive Wheatley production will perhaps remain “only shadows” in the grand scheme of things.
Author Biography
Tyler Thier is a recent graduate of SUNY Geneseo who holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and theatre. His passion has long been cinema in all its varieties, especially those of the experimental and low-budget persuasion. Among his greatest hobbies are writing poetry and exploring the many arthouse theaters of New York City.
Film Details
A Field in England (2013)
UK
Director Ben Wheatley
Runtime 91 minutes
