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May. 1st, 2021 09:30 pmIt is May Day - happy May Day! - and, as is tradition, I watched The Wicker Man. (Sgt. Howie died for your apples, after all.) This year, I invited my parents to join me, reckoning that The Wicker Man is extremely similar to the endless string of British crime dramas they watch: a policeman goes to a remote Scottish island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl and discovers a wide-ranging conspiracy. The major differences are that The Wicker Man has somewhat less violence, somewhat more nudity, and considerably more musical numbers.
I'm not certain that it was a success. It's difficult to tell if my dad enjoys anything, film-or-tv wise, since he refuses to be drawn into conversation either during the movie or afterwards. He didn't spend the whole thing sighing heavily, so I suppose that's something. My mom found the movie interesting but our discussion afterwards was one of those times where it turns out that mom and I are approaching things from a completely different place. We were talking about the Willow's Song sequence and I mentioned that Willow's singing and dancing in that scene is clearly a form of magic - she's casting a spell. Mom looked really surprised and said that would never have occurred to her. I'm having a hard time seeing how you read that scene as anything else. And there are small things that the movie just assumes you're going to understand - the frog in Myrtle's mouth, the eyes painted on the rowboat, the hand of glory, etc - that I guess I picked up somewhere from reading and foolishly assume everyone knows about but of course they don't. Now I want an annotated Wicker Man, with explanatory popups, as well as a bouncing ball singalong version.
I think this was also the only time I've ever watched the film with other people where I occasionally felt I had to say that most modern paganism is not this obsessed with heterosexual sex. Normally, I feel I can assume people know that but, y'know, parents.
Still. Even given that, I love the movie and I love watching it every year. My parents are probably not going to join me next year, though.
I'm not certain that it was a success. It's difficult to tell if my dad enjoys anything, film-or-tv wise, since he refuses to be drawn into conversation either during the movie or afterwards. He didn't spend the whole thing sighing heavily, so I suppose that's something. My mom found the movie interesting but our discussion afterwards was one of those times where it turns out that mom and I are approaching things from a completely different place. We were talking about the Willow's Song sequence and I mentioned that Willow's singing and dancing in that scene is clearly a form of magic - she's casting a spell. Mom looked really surprised and said that would never have occurred to her. I'm having a hard time seeing how you read that scene as anything else. And there are small things that the movie just assumes you're going to understand - the frog in Myrtle's mouth, the eyes painted on the rowboat, the hand of glory, etc - that I guess I picked up somewhere from reading and foolishly assume everyone knows about but of course they don't. Now I want an annotated Wicker Man, with explanatory popups, as well as a bouncing ball singalong version.
I think this was also the only time I've ever watched the film with other people where I occasionally felt I had to say that most modern paganism is not this obsessed with heterosexual sex. Normally, I feel I can assume people know that but, y'know, parents.
Still. Even given that, I love the movie and I love watching it every year. My parents are probably not going to join me next year, though.
