THE WICKER MAN
Who knew this was a musical?

  The ending can be seen as far off as the title on the box, and features inappropriately funky 70's cop-show chase music.  The pace is glacial, and the prominent folk music (which sounds more American than Scottish, American folk music being the second-most boring kind of music, ever) ranges from tedious to awful, and just doesn't let up.  Britt Ekland's over-hyped nude dance did nothing for me at all, I'm afraid.  Christopher Lee's hair is a riot, and he dresses like a woman in the last act.  And damn if this movie didn't freak me out and disturb me like no movie has in quite some time.

I rented this once before, but didn't get the chance to watch it before it was due.  Suuuure, I watched shit like Body Shop during the week I had that bunch, but was putting this one off til later. This time, I knew I was more sure to watch it because I don't know if this is the inspiration to the Iron Maiden song of the same title, but that damn song keeps me from really enjoying the whole Brave New World album, which is really quite good but that damn track 1 annoys me and colors my perception of the whole thing, even when I skip over it.  I hope against hope that this movie helps warm me to that song, though of course I also have the additional motive of watching this one because I so frequently heard that it's so damn good. (totally irrelevant note: Anathema's Judgment gives me a similar problem for opposite reasons; the first track is so staggeringly effective that I rarely go past it!)

Edward Woodward stars as Sergeant Howie, a God-fearing Scottish police officer (and part-time preacher) who receives an anonymous note that on Summerisle, a young girl has gone missing.  So he flies out there on his own (flying an odd-looking bird with its prop stuck on top like an afterthought; float-planes must've been a new idea in 1973) and finds the population uncooperative, at first claiming not to have heard of the girl, later showing evidence that they're lying.  He fears that he might not find the girl alive, and fears more the people around him because it's a whole island of earth-worshipping pagans!

Christopher Lee and that horrible hair of his plays Lord Summerisle, the local head honcho.  He's a heathen, but he believes "not an unenlightened one."  If you can look past that hair of his, this is actually one of his best roles, and I've heard, his personal favorite.  He sings, too.  And, weirdness of weirdnesses, there are musical numbers in this movie.  No, not scenes with music, I mean actual musical numbers, like the opening credits of Jack Of All Trades.  I was so knocked-on-my-ass shocked by this that I actually found myself enjoying them very much.  I wish the John Denver-ish soundtrack lived up to the promise of that musical number in the inn.

This movie refuses to take a moral stance on its two opposing ideologies, leaving the pagans in the audience to cheer for the pagans and boo their boorish guest, and the Christians to be aghast at their heathen ways (even Lord Summerisle cannot convincingly say that their rituals actually yield results) and their ultimate offering in that wicker man, which, I might add, might be interpreted as both a Christian AND Pagan triumph.  I, who fall in neither camp, found it fairly easy to do both, and this has to be the first movie I can remember which actually affirmed my lack of faith.  It wouldn't surprise me in the least if I were to find that screenwriter Anthony Shaffer was an atheist of George Carlin-like rabidity.

And that ending...whoa.  (sorry, I had to say that with Keanu Reeves-like attempted profundity)  Yeah, there's a twist at the end which you probably should've seen coming (I only half-saw it), rewriting the reality of much that came before; this would've fit in well in the last few years.  Predicted or not, what it leads up to is no less powerful, played both as a triumph and a tragedy, working as both and all the more disturbing for it.

The Wicker Man may still be available in two shorter cuts, which I understand are to be avoided, though I might wish that a shorter cut might alleviate tat pacing problem.  (If it's under 102 minutes, you've got the wrong copy)  Directed by Robin Hardy, who directed another movie 13 years later and hasn't done any since.

(oh yeah, most boring kind of music, if you were wondering: Canadian folk music)

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