The Wicker Man [Director's Cut] (1973)

Title: The Wicker Man
Also Known As: Anthony Shaffer's The Wicker Man
Release Date: December 1973
Genre: Horror
Director: Robin Hardy
Cast: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Britt Ekland, Ingrid Pitt, Lindsay Kemp
Country: UK
Runtime: 99 min
Quality: DVD9 (iso)
Video: PAL 16:9, 1:1,95
Language: English 2.0
Size: 7,5 Gb

Plot Keywords:

Wicker Man' must be ranked most highly in the annals of modern cinema, if not for mere technical excellence then surely for outright audacity and quirkiness.
The late 60s and early 70s were a very interesting time for cinema. Movies were being produced that were thematically challenging, experimental and downright strange, reflecting the sociological turmoil that was going on in postwar Western culture. WM is one of the more lasting and significant pieces to come out of the period, and it is right to say that it is a genuine classic of the British cinematic tradition. It is sensually mysterious, ferociously intelligent, confrontational and, finally, terrifying.
The incidental pieces are beautifully effective as well; that marriage again of the subtly sinister and dreamily idyllic... "The Masks" indeed is ghostly in its sinister clarity after the haunted echoes of "The Ruined Church" (harking back to "Lullaby).
A wonderful soundtrack in all; inextricably linked with one's memory of the film's memorable images, and also fine music in its own right.
WM represents the dark underbelly of the 'Hippy' era; the stark clarification that tuning in, turning on, and dropping out of square society entailed buying into tenets and beliefs that, at heart, could carry with them unnamed dangers and terrors. WM showed that paganism at its raw, ragged-toothed centre was never cuddly nor chirpy. So many Hippies and New-Agers have selectively taken all the light frothy bits from the ancient religions of yore and forsaken the less digestible realities. Yet, to be fair, isn't that what we in the comforts of our 'enlightened' and oh-so-modern age have done to ALL religions? We've packaged them to be a sweeter pill to swallow, and pretended that it was ever thus - not that it ever was.
We have become tourists in a sense. We profess faith without ever really having to touch upon the consequences of our beliefs; we can be detached. WM is about the consequences - the logical extension that when one really and truly BELIEVES, then NOTHING is forbidden.

WM is a rewarding film for anyone who wants a cinematic experience unencumbered by well-worn templates or rutted paths of predictability. Frankly there is nothing it can be compared to. It contains an element of dated 'folksiness' which some might find interminably cheesy or off-putting - particularly with respect of the numerous chants, odes and sonnets that underscore Edward Woodward's journey as Sergeant Howie as he travels through the strange and disquieting Summerisle community, investigating the disappearance of a young girl. Woodward's performance as a self-righteous Christian prig amongst 'heathens' he is both disapproving of, and also more than a little afraid of, is both real and sufficiently haughty. Chistopher Lee is characteristically excellent as Howie's undeclared yet good-natured nemesis, the cheerfully blasphemous and wickedly sharp-witted patron of the island, Lord Summerisle. The exchanges between the two men form the cut and thrust of the movie's premise - where an incredulous and pious modern-day policeman conflicts with individuals whose beliefs are rooted in something unrecognisably alien, and who, moreover, have forgone Christian tenets as less than irrelevant within their daily lives.
Ingeniously, this film also toys with our sympathies for its central characters. Howie, though ostensibly the 'hero' of the plot, is all too much of a stuffed shirt for us to identify with entirely. Indeed, we as viewers tend to relish the scenes in which the islanders best him with their strange and befuddling brand of logic. Yet, by the end of the film, our sympathies make their most drastic, sudden shift of all - oh yes they most certainly do.
Even those who would claim not to appreciate the film would, I'm sure, not be able to forget its starkly brutal climax. I think Edward Woodward's performance at this point provides one of the most wrenchingly powerful depictions of a doomed soul committed to film. And that awesome final shot must be one of the most dramatic moments in all cinema. The burning, burning sun ... death and rebirth in the Pagan Cycle.