A Field In England
Studio: Drafthouse Films
Directed by Ben Wheatley
Feb 06, 2014
Web Exclusive
Some midnight movies arrive naturally, almost as accidents; others are purposefully, forcefully birthed. Ben Wheatley’s A Field In England is of the latter category, a flurry of loaded images too incomprehensible to carry any intended profundity.
It’s 1648, and England is in the throes of a Civil War. A cowardly alchemist’s assistant flees a nasty battle and runs into three other deserters. They band together in search of an alehouse. They happen into a mushroom-filled field, where they find a fugitive, who convinces them a treasure is buried nearby. They eat the local fungi, trip balls, dig for gold and, sometime during the course of their hallucinatory treasure hunt, begin killing each other off. Or maybe they’re just dreaming it?
There isn’t much plot to A Field In England, so how it achieved such an astounding level of nonsensicality is a wonder. What it does have going for it, however, is crisp, engrossing black-and-white cinematography, and a handful of genuinely creative—if often frustratingly obtuse—psychedelic sequences. A late-movie hallucination uses rapid-fire cuts and image-warping to lend it a disturbing feel somewhere between a nightmare and a game played in a funhouse mirror. (A title card at the beginning of the picture warns of “flashing images” and stroboscopic effects.) But other scenes, such as a repeated gimmick where the actors hold frozen poses as the camera moves about them, call too much attention to the thmselves. With some semblance of coherence among the imagery, A Field In England might have been something special. As is, stranding these men in a field full of psychedelic mushrooms only feels like little more than an excuse to show off a wheelhouse of trippy cinematic tricks.
Author rating: 4/10
Average reader rating: 9/10
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February 3rd 2020
12:20pm
>, engrossing black-and-white cinematography,
Meh. Just looks like low budget digital video with the saturation turned down. wasn’t impressed on any level, looked too glossy and cheap.