The Judge
RAVES!
Date: 04/04/04
(I just had to put in an update today, if only to be able to type that
date! It's the simple things in life....)
I know I'm a bit late with this. I video'd the Welsh version at New
Year, but have been putting off watching it until now.
This 108-minute film, completed last year, is a mixture of live
action and animation of various styles.
It's based on Pedeir Keinc Y Mabinogi, or what is known
elsewhere as The Mabinogion, a collection of interlinked
stories, dating from the pre-mediaeval period, which are the
centrepiece of the whole history of Welsh prose. They have inspired
generations of writers and poets, and are said to have been influential
on Tolkein (yes, him again), C.S. Lewis and others. Many will
be familiar with the stories from the translations into English by
Charlotte Guest in the 19th century.
I'm not usually one for boasting, but I can claim the ability to
read the stories in the original (with the help of some scholarly
footnotes, partly because our 13th century forebears were useless
at spelling), and I have recently re-read them with great enjoyment.
It's a pity I didn't do that twenty-odd years ago when I was supposed
to be studying them for my degree.
The film tells the story of three teenagers, each with their own
problems and challenges in life, who go diving at the site of the isle
of Gwales, said to be the doorway to the Otherworld of the English
title. They find the doorway, and are transplanted into characters of
the Mabinogi to face challenges which may, in due course, help them
determine their path in their 'real' lives.
This sounds deadly dull and worthy. Believe me, it isn't. All
right, it might have been better had we been given more background to
the live-action characters' histories at the start, and the animation
style might not be to the taste of those enamoured of high-tech,
bang-up-to-date CGI-fests; but it's an enchanting (if you'll pardon the
word) film, full of feeling. It must have been difficult trying to tell
a series of interlinked tales in an overwhelmingly linear medium, but
the makers pull it off pretty well.
It's not one for the squeamish or prudish, either: mediaeval
realism has, thankfully, triumphed over the rather cutesy-pie Guestian
legacy, and violence and sex make their due appearances.
I can rarely sit down and watch a movie - I don't have the
attention span. But the time passes with ease with this film, and I was
quite sorry when it ended - always a good sign.
The film has, unfortunately, been given only a limited theatrical
release, and I don't think it's out on video or DVD yet. It has had
some television exposure, however, and if it comes to a channel near
you, please find time to watch it.
In this, it might help if you don't live in England. True
to form, it seems that the English version has yet to find a screening
spot on any of the English TV networks. Perhaps it didn't contain
enough Central Casting clichés for the tunnel-visioned Visigoths
who seem to run English television nowadays. I mean, how can it be any
good if it comes from Wales and doesn't have a single choir in
it, darlings?
Which brings me on to a rant. After watching the film, I Googled
for some reviews. I found three from the mainstream London media. They
were, I'm afraid, much as one would have expected. "It's a worthy
cause, but it doesn't quite work", twittered the BBC; "a fey
prog-rock world", hummed The Guardian; and worst of all, from some
sneering twonk in The Telegraph, "This might pass muster on Welsh
kids' TV, but for cinemas it will not do" (these last two remarks
coming after each had repeated the BBC's patronising remarks about
worthiness).
In my experience, no-one is quite as provincial (or as shallow) as
the English metropolitan reviewer, especially when the subject of the
review comes from one of England's subject cultures. Unless it conforms
to a clear set of stereotypes, which obviates the need for the critic
to actually think for him- or herself, then it may safely be
patronised, dismissed or (in the hands of a truly versatile reviewer)
both. Had this film come out of Prague or Budapest in the Cold War
years, these same shallow hacks would have found all sorts of
significances in it, and would have effused that it "sublimated
this, transcended that and came to terms with the fundamental
dichotomies of the other", as the much-missed Douglas Adams would
have put it. They would also have been left with a profound and vivid
insight into something-or-other, even if they had had to make it up to
justify their expenses.
(For a further exposition on the laziness of English intellectuals
vis-à-vis the cultures of the Celtic nations, see my rant here).
So please, if you have the chance, watch this film. I'm not
claiming that it will change your life, but at least you will be able
to make up your own mind and stick two fingers up at the
pseudo-intellectual snobs of the London media at the same time - which
is never a bad idea.
