In the Woods there Grew a Tree . . .

Happy May Day, everyone. Of course, yesterday was May 1st here in Japan so I had my annual viewing of The Wicker Man (1973) last night.

I found myself wondering what Summerisle would be like a few years later. My preferred fantasy is that the crop is actually good after Howie's sacrifice and there are only occasionally bad crops in ensuing years. Maybe they steadily become more frequent instead of calamity abruptly descending. In any case, it's easy enough for Lord Summerisle to negotiate his way out of being sacrificed.

I wondered at some children finally starting to rebel against the status quo. One of the eeriest things about the movie is how thoroughly everyone is sold on the philosophy. The Wicker Man would be good on a double feature with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The crimes of the Manson family must have made something like the Summerisle religion seem plausible. One scene that gets more striking every time I watch the movie is the little girl who has a beetle tied to a nail in the classroom, and her delight at how the beetle can't help eventually crushing itself to death. Howie says, "Then why in God's name do you do it?" and she looks offended but can't reply. And that's of course a metaphor for what they do to Howie. They have this whole spiel about how, in presuming on his authority, he's brought this fate upon himself. But it's the people of Summerisle who've set everything in motion. The beetle might crush itself to death but that wouldn't have happened if someone hadn't tied it to a nail. It's obvious but you can see a certain kind of madness very easily washing its hands of the murder.

The Wicker Man is available on The Criterion Channel.