Directed and narrated by Canadian documentarian John Walker, from 2000. Thanks to Chris Knowles for telling me about this joyous 75 minutes of film-making.
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Wednesday, December 17, 2014
The Fairy Faith
Directed and narrated by Canadian documentarian John Walker, from 2000. Thanks to Chris Knowles for telling me about this joyous 75 minutes of film-making.
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11 comments:
Thank you SO much, Mike, for posting this documentary! I've had one small type event very similar to some of these stories - years ago. It was rather remarkable and I've never been able to adequately express my amazement when this thing happened to me.
Reminds me of a story I read when I was in school where the main character Peter Schlemihl sold his shadow to the devil. The wikipedia entry to that story offers a nice recap.
The story´s also available in english and for free here.
Weird, I was actually going to post a link to a similar documentary on your blog a couple of weeks ago but decided not to. Set in Iceland, it focuses on connecting Fairies, Elves, UFO's, psychic phenomenon, ghosts etc. John Keel would probably have liked it, but also might have called the people "Cultists" aka Whackjobs. Here's the link Mike, enjoy -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRjatXe5bis
Gavin
Been one of my favorite films for a long time Mike, i actually own the long out of print DVD. The last 20 minutes of the film totally blew me away and went in a direction i was not expecting at all. Truly a little gem.
My grandmother, aunts and uncles all on my mothers side of my family believes in fairies. When I was young, myself and cousins were told on certain days of the years to actually go look for them! Like we were some crack team of fairy hunters. Im going to ask around the family and find out when we would this. Because mostly we were always told to never go with the fairies or they used to threaten us kids.
Edit:"or they(the fairies) were used to threaten us kids.
My bad. :)
Very enjoyable film and thought-provoking on several levels. After Ward's comment, I watched a little intro and skipped to the last 20 minutes.
I liked the comments of 'Dr. John MacInnes' that the imagination has a dark side. He says it's all 'a metaphor for the human imagination' and 'it all comes from the human imagination...of course, the question is what is the imagination?'
When Stephen Oldale tells his story, I struggle to believe him. He's got charisma and a way of telling the account that suggests a poet or someone theatrical. He has a way with words, dramatic pauses and physical motion that comes with training.
Aside from that, his retelling of the incident was super-rich in details. From their faces to their underclothing to the form of clouds, he had the narrative down like it was straight out of a book or rehearsed many times.
Doubts aside, it looks like a good film and I'll watch the entirety this weekend.
Thanks Mike - absolutely brilliant.
I have always loved the story of Tam Lin - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tam_Lin.
Mike Waterson sings an amazing version of this tale on Watersons album For Pence And Spicy Ale.
http://www.amazon.com/Pence-Spicy-Ale-Watersons/dp/B00I1VVLT4/ref=sr_1_2?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1419120867&sr=1-2&keywords=For+Pence+and+Spicy+Ale.
The South West of England, where I grew up, has a strong pixie presence. I have to admit that there is a certain magic to an long British summer's evening and I have had one rather anomalous experience back when I was a kid.
I love the way these ancient myths blend with a tradition of gentle leg pulling and tall tale telling, along with the ongoing mystery of conciousness, and the imaginal and liminal realms.
" I love the way these ancient myths blend with a tradition of gentle leg pulling and tall tale telling, along with the ongoing mystery of conciousness, and the imaginal and liminal realms. "
Exactly how I wanted to say it...perfect.
It was interesting to learn that Brian Froud doesn't just paint fairies, he believes implicitly in their reality, and seems to be painting them as he sees them.
I still remember when I was a child and woke up my parents because I could see 'duendes' dancing around in my bedroom's ceiling.
In all likelihood an hypnagogic hallucination, but how I wish my mom hadn't told me to just go back to sleep and forget about it...
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