Review of The Wicker Man (1973) by David L — 16 Jun 2011

What can I say but The Wicker Man is a great film The messages and themes in this movie are so phenomenal and elements bizarre, that its hard to believe people out their actually hate this movie. Whilst at first the film gives a some what biased message against Christianity, the movie unfolds into a matter of religion being some what a muddle in general due to human kind's way of behaving upon it. A film that strikes a message across over mans obsession over religion? Yes, it works, and oh how it does.

The plot is as follows; Sergeant (Neil) Howie receives a letter from anonymous from Summerisle, a small secluded Scottish island consisting of a community with some what odd and different believes from the mainland's religion and culture which possibly fall into Paganism. The letter explains of a missing girl called Rowan Morrison. Howie, being an incredibly strict Christian, so strict that he refuses to have sexual intercourse before marriage, and strict to his career as a police officer, is given nothing but "nonsense and rubbish" as he asks the whereabouts of Rowan Morrison, and other questions to follow, which ends with a festival called May Day which lives up to the films poster art work. This is where the questioning of your personal beliefs comes in. Howie seems to be very closed minded and strict about the culture of the people on Summerisle, and although you may think the people of the island think the opposite back, they too are quite ignorant and "insane" due to their beliefs and religion hence "God is dead, he had his chance".

The film has an amazing pace, and along the whole feature there are scenes such as a girls nasal passage wrapped around a tree on her grave, and a jar of foreskins in a local shop which makes this film so different and obscure like no other because of its exploration into unheard territories of religion(s) and culture that we as the majority of society may be very unaware of. Another thing about The Wicker Man is its incredible realistic portraying of "pagan" cultures, where as in the remake we see people running around in brown and white robes, and in this film we see them as normal and well presented people living on an island isolated from their culture, but not living in the 1800's or anything ridiculous and far-fetched. The film does play on its characters to represent the message of accepting one another's cultures, religion, beliefs etc.

Not only has this but the movie has a certain spark of music to it. Along the whole movie there is folk like music that occasionally makes its way into the film and suits in very fine to what scenes it connects with, such as the scene between Howie and Willow (Britt Ekland) and their moment despite their separation of different rooms. The music adds more to the islander's crazy, fun yet somewhat enlightening religion.

The acting from almost every character and actor in the film is remarkable. Edward Woodward does an absolute spectacular job as the strict, up tight "no fun" police officer, and his character works so well with him, its not only convincing, but you begin to get annoyed by his character for being so, as many would say "boring" and yet we as the audience can understand just how he feels about the way things are run on Summerisle, and in the end there is a complete character change, that makes you feel so gloomy over the ending of the film. Even Edward Woodward's character went on to inspire the Simon Pegg's character of Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz (2007) in which Woodward himself stars in too. Christopher Lee has always has a certain enigma about him as an actor, in the James Bond film The Man With the Golden Gun he plays a mysterious and intellectual man which is convincing, not only due to his acting abilities but his facial expression, height and so on. Even today in films such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) he still has a morbid yet intelligent character about him despite he is only on screen for a few moments. All the extras of the film that appear on Summerisle also have this mysterious character about them. The sort of "they know something I don't" act is seen through whole movie by all the citizens of the island. Christopher Lee's role as Lord Summerisle has got to be one of the most influential and amazing performances I have ever seen on screen, and I'm sure there's more than a handful that agree with me.

The Wicker Man, no matter how unheard of the film may be, should be seen by everyone who actually has a care left about film. This movie toys with personal beliefs and religion, and doesn't necessarily portray specific messages, but gives the viewer their own thought on the subject of religion, culture and beliefs. This land mark in film history will never be forgotten as long as people uphold its pure brilliance, no matter how many people say it isn't a horror film, and no matter how many remakes it may have. The Wicker Man has stood the test of time and as long as religion stays on the planet, this film will always stand the test of time.