Photographing Fairies (1997)

Really Surprised!

Powerful

Admirable film.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It's 1912. Charles Castle (Toby Stephens) loses his new bride (Rachel Shelley) in a snow crevasse in Switzerland. During the war, he works as a war photographer not caring about dying. After the war in London, he takes portraits of people inserting their lost love ones into the pictures and debunks a photo forgery of fairies in front of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's group. Beatrice Templeton brings him photos of her daughters Clara and Ana with fairies. Charles can't find any tampering in the image and decides to find out for himself in the small town of Burkinwell. Beatrice tells him that she had seen the fairies herself but then he finds her dead in the woods. Her husband Reverend Templeton (Ben Kingsley) is much respected. Linda (Emily Woof) is the kids' nanny. The kids eat a flower that allow them into the world of fairies.It's the feel of a bit of moody light horror at the start. It could have gone that way but it goes more to the magical fantasy. Yet it's not surreal or fanciful. It's a very fascinating unusual mix of tones. Ben Kingsley has the juicier part and plays it very well. The movie climaxes with an interesting fight but then it fades a little. It needs to wrap up a little quicker. That's probably my only minor complaint.

Photographing Fairies is directed by Nick Willing who co-adapts with Chris Harrald from the book of the same name written by Steve Szilagyi. It stars Toby Stephens, Emily Woof, Ben Kingsley, Frances Barber & Philip Davis. Music is scored by Simon Boswell and John DeBorman is the cinematographer. Plot finds Stephens as photographer Charles Castle, a level headed man who took delight in debunking the Cottingley Fairies pictures as being fake. However, this brings him into contact with the Templeton family and what appears to be an authentic looking image of a tiny fairy. It's the beginning of journey that will prove to be as magical as it is dangerous.No! This is not the fairy film about the girls who faked the Cottingley Fairies pictures. Released the same year, that film was called Fairy Tale: A True Story, a very nice film in its own right, but this is a very different animal. Very much a unique film, Photographing Fairies has a number of words that frequently crop up when reading about, or discussing it. Weird, hypnotic, beautiful, tragic, odd, haunting, dreamy, surreal and poetic, any one of those can be used to describe Nick Willing's movie. Ultimately it's the word mystical that best sums it up, with the film weaving together intriguing premise's that in turn are played out with gorgeous visuals. Charles Castle's search for the truth is not merely that, himself in grief, as he searches for physical evidence, it leads him to something more, arguably something all encompassing and not worldly. The movie poses many questions as it explores the likes of paganism, animism and the role of hallucinogens in bringing to life a world beyond the physical one we all know. Refreshingly, we the audience are not fed the answers, and the film is all the better for it.More known for his work on music videos, Nick Willing blasted out of the directing blocks with this as his debut big screen offering. That he hasn't gone on to far better things is a mystery given the first class work he does here. Some of the scenes here are remarkable, truly, and aided considerably by DeBorman's pin-sharp photography he's made a visually hypnotic interest story that's paced to precision. Simon Boswell provides a swirling romantic score, flecked with mystic tones and nicely entwined with Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, it's very tonally correct and worthy of re-visits on its own. The cast are on good form, with Kingsley doing creepy folk religious and Stephens a nice line in a man hurting within, showing cynical arrogance, yet opening up his layers the further he delves into the mystery. Come the finale, a tragic-beauty finale at that, the film has come full circle and it's credit to Stephens that he has been able to carry us along with him at all times. Emily Woof (Velvet Goldmine/The Full Monty) also shines bright in the difficult (spiritual) romantic role, while the child actors are thankfully adorable and never annoying.A film to capture the imagination of those with an open mind or for those with a leaning to the mystical, Photographing Fairies is a little gem. 9/10

A few years ago I stumbled across this book by Steve Szilagyi (quite a name he got himself there), I read it a couple of times, thought it was an entertaining story with some interesting themes... and then I pretty much forgot all about it. Until now, where I stumbled across it on DVD, didn't even know it was made as a film, and so I gave it a shot yesterday, not hoping for much (tiny British films aren't always the epitome of excitement).A positive surprise. The film is about a British photographer who's specialized in trick photography after he came home from WW1. He's a rational man, to the point where he's almost dead inside (the very opposite of Arthur Conan Doyle who also shows up in the tale, played by the guy who played Watson in the TV show btw) but that changes when a woman brings him some photos she claims show her daughters playing in their garden with a bunch of... you guessed it, fairies.This is essentially a fantasy film, but it's not quite like most other fantasy films; questions about belief is the central theme, but it's stretched and played around with so it's constantly intriguing, even for a cynical agnostic (atheist if you're Christian) like me. Is heaven a state of mind, and if so, does that make it less worth? How do you find truth in life, and is it ever better to lie about the truth for the sake of those you love? Thematically they've incorporated many of the more "out there" ideas from the book in rather clever ways; drugs, sex, violence, are also themes in Szilagyi's innocently looking book, and the filmmakers have tried to stay true to this. This isn't some film about small creatures with crowns on their heads who smiles a lot, nor is it a funny Spielbergian flick, it's an exploration of grief and obsession and how those things can affect our beliefs, shake us to the very core. Yeah, it doesn't sound very jolly, which I guess it isn't, but it's interesting.The cast is excellent, the music and photography far better then I had expected (same goes for the limited fx). Going by the cover and BBC's name on it somewhere, I actually thought it was maybe a TV movie. Really brilliant use of slow motion, not just for kicks, as a gimmick, even though it looks ravishing as well, but actually done in a meaningful way with regards to the plot (though that's easier to see if you've read the book).The writers have changed a lot with regards to the plot; shuffled around, condensed, introduced new scenes/characters, and so on, but that's like it should be. Any attempt to take the book directly from the page would've failed miserably. They've even introduced a completely new intro & ending as well. It works like a charm, though some might find it a bit too convenient.I did have some problems with it though... the lead is deliberately almost always kept at arms length, which is okay in some ways, but leads to detachment. I ended up finding his destiny more stimulating and interesting then gripping. There is also the inherent problem a book like this one poses when turned into a movie; how do you visualize ideas and thoughts. How do you visualize symbols? Film is a literal medium, and so it can't hide things the way language can, this film proofs that by coming up short in some of the books most magnificent sequences (but it improves on others); this isn't a fault from the filmmakers, what can they do after all, but it is a problem when they've chosen a story that is essentially more about mystical/spiritual question (going all new age here) then it is about the literal discovery of fairies. Anyway, despite my few complaints, and despite the fact that this is not a mind blowing, life altering, hyper super fantastic religious experience of a film, I still highly recommend it. It's a rather unique and different attempt to play in the fantasy pen, and that is to be applauded I think. It's also pretty entertaining... if your idea of a good time is a bunch of Brits running around in gardens searching for fairies that is.

Far better than I expected and wrongfully neglected. A dark and profound examination of agnosticism and faith that is quite remarkable, with unexpected twists and shocks. I very much recommend this film, particularly the performance by Toby Stephens who is, in a word, amazing.