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[The Witch] A New England Folk Tale
cj iwakura
The Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
The Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
This is a film debut by Robert Eggers(writing and directing), currently at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes.
In 1630 New England, panic and despair envelops a farmer (Ralph Ineson), his wife (Kate Dickie) and their children after being exiled from a Puritan village. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, twin siblings Mercy (Ellie Grainger) and Jonas (Lucas Dawson) suspect Thomasin of witchcraft, testing the clan's faith, loyalty and love to one another.
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo2OTEbz-jUBut seriously, I wouldn't watch it until seeing the film. It spoils a lot.
I would enjoy discussing it, though.
Featuring the cuddliest goat ever!
So thoughts on the ending:
Some, including the Satanic church of all people, claim this is an awakening film in regards to witchcraft, and are celebrating it. I think it's a cautionary tale. I think you can clearly see Thomasin screaming in the last few seconds, realizing the hell she's damned herself to.
I wonder if anyone else shares that interpretation. Also, I think that throughout the film,
there isn't just one witch, but each of the three incidents are separate witches.
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As for your points:
I tend to have strong feelings about anything involving witchcraft. So there is that to look forward to.
Did anyone else have a hard time understanding the language in the film? There were definitely parts where I felt like I had totally lost the thread (especially
I'm not quite convinced that Thomasin's arc would end with her willingly submitting her soul and becoming a witch. The ending seemed like a stretch to me, but it was thematically (fairy-tale logic) on point. 9 out of 10 witches brooms, well done thee!
Why?
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
They lionize and perpetuate the idea that occultism is a real danger & that things like the Salem witch trials or the McMartin Preschool trial were totally legitimate & prudent state actions. I think it's disgusting to throw red meat to the crowd that believes in the palpable hazards of occultism / witchcraft.
To this day, echoes of that fundamentalist sentiment are still found in law enforcement circles in the American Bible Belt.
It was well shot, well acted and pretty meticulously crafted.
But I didn't see the point.
Usually the only point of a horror movie is to tell a scary story.
did i miss something?
It's a work of horror fiction about evil witches that's entirely in old english.
I'm not sure it's going to help fundamentalist Christians mate.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
It didn't do that.
But "a scary story" is not sufficient justification for a witch story. If you are going to use one of the most glaring examples of patriarchy and religious hysteria you have to say something meaningful.
It didn't say anything meaningful, it wasn't particularly scary. It just didn't do anything, really.
I guess what WAS nice was that it was pretty authentically Pentecostal and very much provided an accurate picture and counter point to modern, more mainstream Christian practice (though, they certainly still do practice Pentecostal Christian theology, perhaps not as extremely).
Do not recommend.
I saw it as a giant cautionary tale. Whether it's one about being too extreme on your religion or messing with things you shouldn't understand, take your pick.
I wouldn't say that, would you switch places with the girl protagonist? She has a really shitty life in the movie
Assuming she really did
Whether I would switch places with someone isn't a message, and I don't agree with your assessment. The entire film seems more or less neutral on the events depicted. This was more or less "a week in the life of Puritan family, the puritans encounter a witch".
It doesn't succeed as either though - the religious narrative is ultimate justified
The religious narrative is confirmed at every step.
There's nothing cautionary about Thomasin's decision to sign the book - the concerns about the final shot are drawing a very long bow, it is at worst ambiguous - absent sound (and even with sound, sometimes) it is hard to differentiate between pleasure and pain during coitus, between laugher and crying at times - but let's say we grant that it definitely shows her shift from joyous laughter to hysterical screaming and crying. What is it actually saying there? As a cautionary tale it is very weak tea with regard to showing the negative consequences of messing with things you do not understand, what really, can we draw from that? And compare it to the through line of the movie with regard to the religiousity - it spends a lot of time with that theme but ultimately says little - it is saying even less about "messing with things you don't understand" with far, far less. And, the final kicker is if it is indeed cautioning against messing with things you do not understand/making deals with he-goats it is another point confirming the religious narrative.
But as I said, it doesn't seem particularly interested in passing judgement on the religious notions or practice of those involved, so it is all the stranger.
The message very much is about the peoples lives, it's hard to miss. I'd hardly say it was wrong to conclude that the conditions the family was living under, even without the witch, was bullshit from many directions.
No, it wasn't.
Everything that happened was the result from the father's stubbornness and religious conviction. Which got his family killed and may have ended up turning his daughter into a witch. Oh, the irony.
Things got so bad they seriously considered selling off their daughter for extra food and supplies. The movie was filled with themes about the patriarchy and (fundamentalist) religion being bad for people. The with was only half the problem in the movie, the rest was the family, religion and society. It's difficult to miss unless you're deliberately not looking.
You are very obviously reading your own prejudices back into the movie in whatever the movie equivalent of Whig History is. Which has clarified for me what the film was - a rather faithful construction of the view of the world that Puritan Calvinists would have had - it is, after all right there in the subtitle "A New England Folktale". Which is intellectually interesting for how alien it is but not that interesting as a movie experience.
Let's be clear - the witch/es torment of them is entirely incidental to the religiousity or patriarchy. They are chosen simply because they are nearby. If they had have been kicked off the plantation for being insufficiently pious and modern in their sensibilities they would be in the same predicament.
The torments are exactly what the settlers would find terrifying - despite being extraoridnarily zealous, they are preyed upon by he devil and his servants. But most the torments are quite prosaic, their corn is spoiled after being chewed by the witch/es, their traps are emptied, their goats produce blood instead of milk. Snatching the children and possessing/sickening them is rather more universally fear inducing.
I didn't find the prospect of their moving to send Thomasin to work elsewhere to be an issue - perhaps I am mistaken but sending one's daughters to work and serve another family seems the sort of thing I would expect to have happened in any case, even if they did think it regretful.
I disagree entirely that there is an irony in Thomasin becoming a witch. It is entirely consistent with a Calvinist TULIP perspective and with the view of women. Thomasin doesn't struggle against what she is left with, she hesitates for all of a few hours before joining the very dark forces that killed her loved ones for entirely shallow baubles - exactly in keeping with her mother's aspersions with regard to the silver cup.
There isn't any clear dramatic irony where it would clearly have fit. She doesn't try and survive in her own - it isn't a last resort, she doesn't challenge Black Phillip for his part in her newfound circumstances - say "what choice have I?". If you want to maintain that it is a more general social commentary then you have a lot of work to do to explain why it isn't there in the movie.
It has little to nothing to say about witches on top of what is there on face value and the ostensible view of the pilgrims. They sell their soul to the devil for promises of great things, but hang out in a hut in the middle of nowhere and do weird shit instead. It doesn't comment on the discrepancy, it doesn't show the absurdity of witch trials, it just exactly what it seems - a sober, neutral presentation of how puritans view the world.
It's pretty safe to say
I would definitely recommend it.