I watched "A Field in England" - from up and coming British horror director Ben Wheatley (who also gave us Sightseers, Kill List and Down Terrace) - last night and it was pretty good. It is quite strange - in a good way - in parts and if you don't like rapidly flashing images then this film won't be for you, especally the part when you are met with a barrage of images, several per second, for several minutes in total.
Here is part of a review of it:
The latest film from Ben Wheatley is a supremely original English Civil War drama that confirms him as Britain's most thrilling young director, says Robbie Collin.
5/5
Dir: Ben Wheatley; Starring: Reece Shearsmith, Michael Smiley, Peter Ferdinando, Ryan Pope, Richard Glover, Julian Barratt. 15 cert, 90 mins
Lone star: Reece Shearsmith - a member of the League of Gentlemen - as Whitehead in Ben Wheatley's 'A Field in England'
A Field in England starts as it means to go on: by plunging into thorny underbrush. The time period is the English Civil War, the image black-and-white, the air thick with battle drums and cannon smoke.
A man is fleeing the conflict, and he rushes headlong into a thicket, briars clawing at his eyes and the camera’s lens. His name is Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith), perhaps after the philosopher or the pimple, and he figures his chances of survival will be higher on the other side of the woods. When he emerges, he finds himself in a field with two more deserters (Peter Ferdinando and Richard Glover). They have just about swapped pleasantries when a fourth man (Ryan Pope) materialises and convinces them to join him on a tramp to a nearby pub.
(It turns out that Whitehead is on the opposing side to the others. It's hard to tell but it seems that Whitehead is a Cavalier and the rest of his group are Roundheads).
On the way, they come to a circle of mushrooms, where they find, tethered to a rope, an Irish Cavalier alchemist called O’Neil (Michael Smiley), who mutters darkly about buried treasure. Together, the men start searching and digging, although what they finally unearth is more life-changing than any pot of silver.
A Field in England is by turns an abstract occult head-trip, a curdled Canterbury Tale and a comedy so dark you can barely see the end of your nose in it, which is one way of saying that it is the new film from Ben Wheatley. Wheatley is the busy director who in the last four years has brought us
Down Terrace,
Kill List and
Sightseers: pictures so infested with ideas and riddled with self-assurance that they can single-handedly restore your faith in the future of British film-making. But they also make you cherish its past, and the influence of directors from Mike Leigh to Ken Russell pop up everywhere in Wheatley’s brief back catalogue.
Read the rest:
A Field in England, review - Telegraph
A Field in England - Official UK Trailer - YouTube
A Field in England 2013 Full Scenes 1 of 7 - YouTube