Any criticism that the series was unsuitably adult for
children is untrue. Never underestimate the child; it is pure, it observes,
makes up its own mind. But then is taught to see things otherwise. Gillian
Hills speaking in 2008
It’s fitting that with Enys Men, the new film from
director Mark Jenkin, being released in January along with a season of “folk
horror” films that helped inspire it (The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men*),
that Network have just put out this ground-breaking series on Blu-ray for the
first time. The Owl Service was clearly influenced by some of the films
of the period, and not just from the “horror” category, as well as casting its
odd spell over the stories to follow, from Children of the Stones, Pendas
Fen, even as far as The Box of Delights (1984)
The series was drawn from Alan Garner's novel The Owl
Service (1967) and was scripted by Garner himself, who was present for the
shoot. The story alludes to Blodeuwedd as featured in the Fourth Branch
of the Mabinogion, Welsh folkloric stories from the 12th Century
which, in this case refer to a love triangle between Blodeuwedd a woman created
from flowers by the king of Gynedd, Math fab Mathonwy and a magician called Gwydion,
who betrays her husband Lleu in favour of another man, Gronw, and is turned
into an owl as punishment for inducing Gronw to kill Lleu.
 |
| Gillian Hills' character looks up from reading Mabinogion to see the two boys. We see what she sees on her glasses. There is so much detail here. |
In Garner's tale three teenagers find themselves not only
re-enacting the story but somehow inhabited by the spirits of the original
three; they also interact with others from the generation above who have been in
a similar possession; a cycle set to be repeated down the ages in slightly
varied forms. In one of the interviews included in this set, Garner tells of
his periods of illness as a child when he would will himself into an imaginary
world above his bed in the wooden rafters of his family home on the Welsh side
of Cheshire and also become obsessed with the details of the locale. I know the
feeling, there’s plenty of mystery in Congleton still.
This drift into a world distorted by imagine and by the observed
but unknowable countryside of North Wales, gives the series an edge of
unreality and one the director, Peter Plummer, sets on enhancing by innovative
cinematography; characters looking straight to camera, obscure angles placing
them against the scenery, jump cuts and everything you wouldn’t expect to find
at 5.00pm after school. In his enthusiastic and great value commentary writer Tim
Worthington describes The Owl Service as being “the closest that you will find
to a progressive rock album on television” which might be jumping the gun a
little, but certainly Genesis’ Musical Box (1971) about a child possessed
by the ghost of a murderous Victorian boy, may have been influenced by Owl.
More likely, their sources were from the same arthouse and folk horror roots.
 |
| Hills, Holden and Wallis |
The characters are Alison (Gillian Hills) and Roger (Francis
Wallis), step siblings whose mother Margaret, her authoritarian influence felt
even though she is never seen in another of the series’ oddities, has married Clive
(Edwin Richfield), a well-to-do self-made man, common sensical in ways
guaranteed to heighten the void between “down-to-earth” and other worldly. They
are staying in a Welsh holiday home for the summer and the chance to get to
know each other as a new family.
The house comes with a cleaner, Nancy (Dorothy Edwards) and
her son Gwyn (Michael Holden) along with a rather odd odd-job man called Huw (Raymond
Llewellyn) who seems to know far more than he lets on and to be in a state of
reverie most of the time, not quite the village idiot but a joker, revealing
the truth in short bursts to audience and other characters alike. If he was music,
he’d be diegetic as close to Greek as a Welsh Chorus gets.
The narrative rolls in jarring ways with terrific changes of
time signature and tone as you’d find in classic prog rock as well as the
darker edges of folk rock too. Alison and Gwyn start getting on in rather adult
ways – in the book they were teenagers but here they’re slightly older whilst
the actors were even older, with Holden 22 and Hills a very experienced 25-year-old.
She had appeared not only in Antonioni’s Blow-Up cavorting naked with
David Hemmings and Jane Birkin, but also in Soho cinema neo-classic, Beat Girl
(1960) aged just 16 and would go on to cavort at high speed with Malcolm
McDowall and Barbara Scott the following year, in A Clockwork Orange.
 |
| Francis Wallis and Edwin Richfield |
They awaken the legend by finding a set of dinner plates with
an owl pattern, which unexpectedly for me, provides “the owl service" of
the title. This proves to be one of a number of trails that don’t always reach
a conclusion and fall away as other streams of the narrative flow together with
intermittent force… the more I think about it the more this could well be something
like a team up between King Crimson and the Incredible String Band. Either way,
at eight episodes long, it’s at least a double LP and possibly a triple.
There’s a sepia tinted intro to each episode added as the
producers weren’t convinced that all children would be able to follow the plot
and, in addition to the never-present mother, there are references to and on
one occasion a clip from action that we didn’t previously see. This is as
complex as storytelling gets on TV and even now you’re left grasping for
meaning, no doubt exactly as Garner intended.
There is so much to uncover in the story and I wonder
sometimes if even the cast were fully aware especially as some scenes are alarming
in their physicality and possibly coached on the spot. Garner made the three
main characters, all the characters, hard work and difficult to comprehend or
sympathise with and it’s no wonder some have criticised the younger performers
but they had a tough job. Hills does especially well in these circumstances but
the standout is Raymond Llewellyn who said that Huw never really left him years
on.
_7.png) |
| Gillian Hills and Raymond Llewellyn |
It's an experience like no other and, if you haven’t already
invested, I heartily recommend it. You will watch it more than once and you’ll never
trust dinner plates nor standing stones in quite the same way.
As is usual the Network Special Features are indeed very
special:
- Remastered in HD and presented on Blu-ray for the first time
- Archive interviews with Alan Garner from 1968 and 1980
- Commentaries on selected episodes by writer/broadcaster Tim Worthington
- Image gallery
- Limited edition booklet written by Stephen McKay, Chris Lynch and Kim Newman
You can order The Owl Service direct from Network
and, frankly, no home should be without one… even though, once familiar
surroundings may take on a shadowy aspect once you watch it. Go on, be brave…
*You can also buy tickets for the BFI's The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men series on their site here. Happy Hauntological New Year!
 |
| The Advisory Circle from 2011, one of Hauntology's house bands |
.JPG)
No comments:
Post a Comment