Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

A Field in England Blu-ray Movie Review

It Was the Weirdest of Times

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 10, 2014

A Field in England is the fourth feature from British director Ben Wheatley, a filmmaker so distinctive that his work is impossible to categorize and resists easy comparison to anyone else working today. In a previous film, Kill List (2011), Wheatley combined elements of a crime picture, a con story, a horror flick and a mystical Celtic folk tale (the really bloody kind), but he seems to have perfected the trick of bypassing narrative exposition and burrowing straight into the viewer's subconscious. As with dreams, you can feel the coherence of his films, but you can't explain it. At his best, he achieves the same impact as David Lynch, and like Lynch, Wheatley tinkers with identity, causation and chronology, while using both sound and image to disorient the viewer. The result can be exhilarating. It can also be frustrating as hell.

Wheatley got the idea for A Field in England after shooting documentary footage of battle re-enactments by a British historical group called The Sealed Knot. Much like Civil War re-enactment societies in the United States, The Sealed Knot stages battles from the 17th Century English conflict between Oliver Cromwell's Roundheads and King Charles I's Cavaliers. Ever the thrifty independent producer, Wheatley conceived of a story set in the shadow of that conflict and played out within a single setting. The script that eventually emerged is credited to Wheatley's wife and producing partner, Amy Jump, but the story retains many familiar elements from Wheatley's prior films, especially the interest in magic.

Given its origins, you might think that A Field in England is a historical drama. You would be mistaken.

As seems to be his preference, Wheatley opens the film with no introduction, no explanation and not even a date to indicate the period. Only the clothing and antique weapons reveal that the action is set in a prior century. Eventually references to Cromwell and King Charles will alert those viewers familiar with English history of the appropriate era. For the moment, though, there's just fighting and chaos. Eventually, a group of four emerges. They are Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith), who is clearly not a military man; Cutler (Ryan Pope), who is some sort of soldier; and a pair known as Jacob and "Friend" (Peter Ferdinando and Richard Glover), who are deserting an army into which they were probably dragooned. Together these four set off cross-country in search of an ale house.

But after consuming a makeshift soup of locally gathered mushrooms, which may have hallucinogenic properties, the quartet "encounters" a mysterious figure named O'Neil (Michael Smiley). I put the word "encounters" in quotation marks, because the very manner in which the group joins O'Neil is deliberately mysterious, almost as if they were looking for him but didn't know what they would find. Once in O'Neil's company, the four men become his prisoners, though by what means remains unclear. O'Neil claims to have mastered some form of sorcery, but the exact nature of his power is never specified. We only learn that he studies ancient texts. O'Neil says that the field in which they are located contains a treasure and that he can use Whitehead to find it.

From this point, A Field in England hurtles toward some dark unknown according to its own mysterious logic. The field seems to exist in its own dimension, outside normal time and space and walled off from the civil conflict raging outside it. A location for the treasure is identified, and O'Neil orders the men to dig, but are they digging their own grave? Whitehead certainly thinks so. He sees portents of doom in the sky and warns O'Neil that the treasure will be their destruction, but their captor will not desist from his quest, even when roaring winds rake the tall grass and rip away his encampment. "It does not surprise me that the Devil is an Irishman", says Friend, who supplies the deadpan comic relief, "though I thought perhaps a little taller." Some men try to escape; some attempt to battle O'Neil; some are injured and appear to die, though reality in the field becomes so uncertain that you're never sure.

A Field in England opens with a warning about "flashing images and stroboscopic sequences", and indeed the last portion contains an extended segment that Sixties filmmakers who sought to recreate a psychedelic experience could never have imagined. From a narrative perspective, it is triggered by one character's consumption of huge mouthfuls of magic mushrooms. The real meaning of the rapid-fire imagery is as open to interpretation as the Stargate sequence in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Especially in light of Wheatley's closing shot, which should prompt a re-evaluation of everything you've seen up to that point, it's a sequence that, like the rest of the film, defies easy analysis.

A Field in England Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Wheatley and his regular cinematographer, Laurie Rose, shot A Field in England in lustrous black-and-white using two digital cameras, a Canon C300 and a Red Epic, equipped with a variety of lenses, some of them homemade and deliberately designed to introduce distortion. (These effects are discussed in the extras.) Post-production was completed on a digital intermediate, from which Drafthouse Films' 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced.

The portions filmed with professional lenses, which are most of the film, are sharp, clean and noiseless, with deep blacks and beautifully delineated shades of gray that bring out all the fine detail in the matted whiskers, grimy faces, period attire and muddy surroundings. Shots of the field's grass waving in the wind are exquisite, as are various still tableaux of the men that were suggested to Wheatley by antique woodcuts. The deliberately distorted shots include a recurrent effect in which the camera pushes up against a character's face until it distorts, and everything behind its drops out of focus. It's an unsettling effect that suggests madness.

Although I have included a few frames from the strobing "psychedelic sequence", stills cannot convey its visual texture. The sequence depends on rapid cuts, sometimes after a single frame, for its impact.

Given the kinetic nature of various sequences, the average bitrate of 24.99 Mbps might seem low, but the sections with numerous edits are balanced by an equal number of relatively static shots. The letterbox bars, B&W photography and digital origination also allow for a lower average bitrate, although the rate spikes up dramatically in specific passages.

A Field in England Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's 5.1 soundtrack, presented in lossless DTS-HD MA, is elaborately edited and carefully constructed. In the early sequences, when Whitehead and the soldiers are still near the battle, cannon balls fire over their heads and whistle from behind until they land with a blast somewhere to the front left or right. One such explosion temporarily knocks out Whitehead's hearing, so that sounds barely penetrate the ringing. (A comparable effect was used during the Omaha Beach landing in Saving Private Ryan.) Later, when the four men wander off on their own, they encounter the sounds of nature: wind, birds, rustling grass, insects. In O'Neil's domain, strange and often unidentifiable noises intrude, which may be the effects of mushroom consumption or may be something else. (A prolonged episode of screaming—off camera—is unnerving.) The discharge of muskets and pistols strike with appropriate impact, and an intense wind that sweeps over the fields is heard as well as felt.

The track's dynamic range is wide, and bass extension is deep and powerful. If you have a good subwoofer, expect to rattle any loose objects. The musical score by Jim Williams (another of Wheatley's regular collaborators) uses period instruments to complement the costumes and speech, but Williams also incorporates synthesizer elements that blend with the sound effects to the point where it can be hard to tell them apart. The dialogue is clear, but the regional accents are thick and, especially in the absence of any exposition to provide context, some of the exchanges may be difficult for an American ear to grasp. Don't hesitate to make use of the subtitles.

A Field in England Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Director Ben Wheatley, Producer Andy Starke and Sound Editor Martin Pavel: The three collaborators focus almost exclusively on the logistical challenges of filming and post-production, with almost no discussion of the film's themes or narrative construction. Still, interesting details are revealed, e.g., that sound editor Pavel could not find the firing of a 17th Century musket in any sound library and had to record those sounds live on location.



• Interview with Ben Wheatley (1080p; 1.78:1; 22:43): Interviewed by Pete Tombs in April 2013, Wheatley discusses the origin of A Field in England and its development and influences. Tombs is a writer and director who received special thanks in the credits of Wheatley's film Kill List. In B&W.



• Camera Tests Reel (1080p; 2.35:1; 10:29): Shot over a period of several years, these tests were part of the film's lengthy development. The compilation is accompanied by a soundtrack composed of ominous elements from the film's audio mix.



• The Making of A Field in England (1080p; 1.78:1; 21:13): This short documentary was created by editing together select footage from the "Master Class" featurettes listed below. It provides a good overview, but anyone interested enough to watch this "making of" will probably want to see the featurettes in their entirety.



• Master Class Featurettes (1080p; 1.78:1): A "play all" function is included. The titles are self-explanatory.
• The Edit (4:38)
• The Practice of Magic: Visual Effects (5:45)
• Influences (2:47)
• If Thoul't Be Silent: Recording the Sound (3:41)
• Time Management (4:42)
• Costumes (4:42)
• Cinematography: The Look of the Film (3:32)
• Only Shadows: Acting (7:22)
• Scoring the Field (5:58)
• The World of the Field (5:37)
• Journey of a Scene: Rushes, the First Assembly and Final Cut (24:13)
• Anatomy of a Scene (12:14)



• Trailers
• A Field in England
• The Act of Killing
• Pieta (480i)
• Miami Connection
• Wake in Fright
• Drafthouse Alliance



• Booklet: The booklet contains production stills, a continuation of Wheatley's interview with Pete Tombs, and the disc's production credits.

A Field in England Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A Field in England is a unique and memorable experience, but like many of the films released by Drafthouse, it isn't for everyone. If you sit down to watch it, don't expect to receive a clear resolution or to understand at the end what O'Neil was after or who Whitehead is—indeed, who any of the five main characters are. Above all, do not labor under the illusion that somewhere out there lies a magic decoder ring that assembles all the puzzle pieces and reveals the secret hidden beneath the riddles. Wheatley does not make films to be "solved". He makes them to be experienced. Drafthouse has provided their usual first-rate treatment. With all appropriate warnings, highly recommended.