The title of the film is literally translated as "The Wicker Man" or freely translated as "Heartist". The wicker man is a way of sacrifice by the Celts. The dolls (or living people) are tied up with the branches of wicker or trees and grass and burned to pray for blessings and prosperity for all living beings. Those who believe in this kind of sacrifice are The Christians call it heretics. At the beginning of the film, it is clarified that the background of the story is set on the summer island on the west coast of Scotland, and Scotland belongs to one of the settlements of the Celts, which matches the name of the film. And the huge burning wicker man at the end echoes the subject.
A police officer who was devoted to Christ received an unnamed letter from Xiadao describing the disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl, so the police officer rushed to Xiadao to investigate. However, the island is full of all kinds of absurd and inferior behaviors that deviate from civilization, making the police officer angry and unreasonable. For example, many pairs of men and women have group sex under the night, adults and children sing lewd songs and nursery rhymes, teachers teach vulgar content to students, a group of naked girls jumping on a campfire, a mother stuffing a frog into her daughter's mouth, inexplicably Barbaric sacrificial rituals and so on. The pious sense of mission led the police officer to continue investigating the girl’s disappearance, but when he finally discovered the truth of the incident, it was too late. He was made into a wicker man as a sacrifice and sacrificed to Natsushima in the raging fire. The god of nature believed by the residents.
If I talk about the understanding of the film, I personally feel that it expresses a kind of confrontation between paganism and Christianity, and it ended in the failure of Christianity. The pagan concept of the Xiadao people is that humans, like animals, plants and other substances in nature, are all elements of nature, and can transform and complement each other. Therefore, the Xiadao people advocate asexual reproduction, they do not agree with the term death, and all their absurd and vulgar behaviors seem reasonable under this pagan concept. Some seemingly plain dialogues in the film profoundly explain the theme and play a vital role in the rational development of the plot. For example, the female teacher said to the police officer: We believe that once the life of a person is over, the soul will return to the trees, air, fire, water, and animals, and return to another form of life. Another example is the words of Lord Summer Island: Nostalgia and awe of nature, respond to it and sacrifice to it when necessary.
There are two close-ups of small animals in the film. One is that Lord Xiadao watched the two snails lingering on the lower leaves of the night. These two snails may symbolize pagan freedom and justice. The other is that the police officer saw a wire-bound bug crawling blindly in the desk, which may represent the confinement of Christians to believers.
The desperate cry of the police officer who was about to die at the end was in stark contrast with the singing and dancing of the residents of Summer Island by the sea. The ending was new and disappointing. No matter how high-sounding dogma, it will always lead to cruel and absurd behavior.
The 2006 remake of "The Wicker Man" starring Nicholas Cage, I haven't seen it yet, but because of the habit of loving the house and the black, I decided to watch it. But it is estimated that it is not easy to see other things except for the gorgeous and dynamic visual effects.
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