Wordiezett So much average

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

cultfilm-89740 Such an amazing film, the dream like nature of the ending. Truly loved it.

ben hibburd Wow...I'm utterly speechless, I don't even know where to begin with this review. Ben Wheatley's metaphysical art house masterpiece is a raw, intense, surreal visual feast for the eyes. A Field in England is a what I consider to be a pure cinematic experience. Set during the 17th century English civil war four world weary deserters come across an alchemist (played with menacing gusto by Michael Smiley) who's looking for buried treasure in a field that may or may not have supernatural powers. I'm not going to talk much about the plot, firstly because this film works better going in fresh, and secondly it's completely irrelevant to what the film is truly about.Ben Wheatley is an incredibly divisive director, you either love or hate his work and this might be his most divisive material yet. As someone who's a big fan of his work this film was everything I could've hoped for. I'm not someone whose main focus on a film is the plot, film in my opinion is first and foremost a visual medium, and therefore the first thing I look for is how good is the visual experience. Most films are 'pretty' to look at, which is fine, but then there are those rare films where the visual storytelling is so powerful it evokes emotions in you. This film had that through it's entire run-time, I never took my eyes off the screen. I was transfixed by this incredible piece of work. (the last time I've been physically moved by film/TV was the atomic bomb episode of Twin Peaks) It's not something that happens often, so when it does it's a testament to how effective the film was.Whilst i'm on the subject of Lynch this film seemed like it was heavily influenced by Lynch's early works such-as Eraserhead. There's one scene in particular, a three minute tracking shot of a man walking out of a tent in slow motion, that was hauntingly beautiful whilst being deeply unsettling and that's the best way to summarise this film. The film is also accompanied by Jim Williams score, which is one of the most impressive, atmospheric scores I've heard in a very long time.The screenplay is expertly written by Wheatley's wife and long time collaborator Amy Jump. It's a film that works on multiple levels depending on what you take away from the film. It's a story that can be easily explained, essentially the characters take mushrooms and go on a bad trip, which works on a surface level. However there's deeper symbolism and metaphors to be found, are the characters in purgatory? Are they going through the nine circles of hell, as they take on 'the Devil' as Smiley's character is constantly referred to as being. It's a film that allows you to take any explanation you want based on the experience you have with the film.A Field in England is a provocative surrealist masterpiece, that solidifies Wheatley as one of the most impressive, creatively bold directors working in cinema today!

mark-sheriff Watch this film... if you are in the mood to be transported back in time to the English civil war.By that I mean; not as a modern day person occupying the hero 'him doing what you would do'. Er... no! With this film; you see life as if you are 'one of that age'... and be prepared for that.This really is not a re-enactment 'with period characters behaving as modern characters'. By the skill of all the actors (the whole film crew), you enter the minds of a group of disparate folk, fleeing an English civil war battlefield. You won't be judgmental... you quickly get, that this is not a good place to be. War could be very personable in those days - people (officer class) knew who they were going for, and our hero finds himself being pursued through a hedgerow, just as others are also ejected.All that is readily understandable. What happens next, isn't.The story is there... the actions, and superstitions are delivered like 'fly on the wall', only that you won't 'get' what they are doing. (Eg. Old mythology said that it took four men to pull somebody out of a mushroom circle.)If you don't get it... it means that you were born in modern times... so just go with the flow, and bask in the believability, that you are there.... and it is pretty visceral. When they fire their pistols or muskets, it's horrifying. The slow acting gunpowder creates a 'crack-thud-whoooosh' that will live with you for some time after the film. (All credit to Ken Garside)We get a final 'Boss Battle', and we get a transformation... or do we?Overall: This film is not only a glorious audio-visual experience, but a mind-blowing teleport into the mindset of life in the mid 17th century, and a front row viewing of base greed, power, and survival.... and it gets better, each time you watch it.

patrick powell Well, views about A Field In England range from the admiring with one IMDb reviewer claiming it depicts 'the failure of the modern day class struggle and the easy triumph of liberal capitalism over working class indifference', another seeing it as an allegory with O'Neill the necromancer as the arrogant Charles I and Whitehead, the coward who finds his balls as Oliver Cromwell.Yet others claim it is a self-indulgent waste of time, nicely acted perhaps and a minimum of resources put to good use, but all to very little end. Me, I am prepared to accept that director Ben Wheatley and screenwriter Amy Jump have an idea as to what they were doing, but yours truly was left guessing.That isn't to say the film doesn't have its attractions: I did, after all, bother to watch all 90 minutes (and I am prone to give up on films which don't really strike me as worth my time, The Fifth Element recently being one on which I called time long, long before the final curtain). It is well enough made to be intriguing, but I do feel Wheatley and Jump took rather too many liberties.I see the relationship between the artist and 'her/his public' as one similar between a host and her/his guest: both have privileges and responsibilities, and as in all good relationships it is a matter of give and take between equals.So we are obliged to give Wheatley the benefit of doubt and hang on in there when we are most at sea in the hope that it will, in some way, pretty much all come together when the film is seen as a whole. I don't mean, crassly, that there should be some resolution with all loose ends tied up: what 'whole' Wheatley (or any artist) wants to serve up is entirely up to him.Wheatley, on the other hand, has a duty to give us something to go on. What that something is is also entirely up to him. And this is where I feel Wheatley has come unstuck: we get striking images and odd direction and a hint at this and that but unless Wheatley merely wants to make a film in the manner of the surrealists of 90 years ago, there should be that ingredient X for the reasonably intelligent viewer to latch onto. Well, I'm buggered if I know what it is or whether Wheatley has provided one. So for me Wheatley has failed at the final lap.A Field In England is entertaining enough - and I don't mean 'entertainment' in the 'showbiz' sense, but more that one might 'entertain' and idea, but Wheatley has got to hone his talent rather more if he really wants to evolve into a director of note. At the moment he strikes me as still paddling in the shallow end.