in the earth (w&d wheatley)

Went to see Wheatley’s latest not expecting much having heard it was a minor work which has received little acclaim. Low expectations might help to dull one’s critical faculties but the film succeeded in ways I had not expected. The story is somewhat hokum, a pot pourri of English folk horror and pantheism, but the film transcends its roots to deliver an experience, on the big screen, which has a real punch. In part this is because the director uses violence with all the skill of a Webster or a Tourneur, delivering well-time doses with surgical precision, but it’s also because the film makes use of all the elements of the filmmaking craft. Sound, light, visual design and editing, are deployed like troops on a battlefield to outflank the viewer, distracting from the more absurd plot elements, the thinly drawn characters and a sense of the predictable coming to pass. Rather than dwelling on the film’s potential weaknesses, the viewer finds themselves immersed in a hypnotic, visceral experience. Wheatley’s masterful employment of post-production resources seems to cock a snook at both the idea of the big budget blockbuster and the low-budget indie film, amalgamating the two to deliver a fearsome and fearless onslaught which leaves you dazed when you finally step out into the gentle balm of a Catalan evening.