Photographing Fairies

Plot synopsis:
In Switzerland in 1912, photographer Charles Castle (Toby Stephens) and Anna-Marie, his fiancèe, are married in an Alpine church. The following day, they are walking in the mountains when a snowstorm closes in. They are returning to the village when a crevasse opens and Anna-Marie falls into it. Charles tries to pull her out but he loses his grip and she dies. During the Great War, Castle serves as an army photographer in the trenches of France. He is photographing corpses with his assistant Roy (Phil Davis) when a mortar lands close by. Roy returns to the trenches but Castle seems unconcerned and continues photographing. He returns to the trenches just before the mortar explodes.
After the war, Castle and Roy run a photographic studio in London. Castle specialises in photographic trick work, including photomontage. He attends a lecture at the Theosophical Society, where Arthur Conan Doyle is examining a projected image of the Cottingley Fairies. Conan Doyle seems convinced they are genuine, but Castle stands, publicly debunks the image and hands out business cards to the audience.
At his studio, Castle is visited by Beatrice Templeton (Frances Barber), who shows him a photograph of her daughter. She is convinced that a mysterious shape is a fairy, but Castle dismissed the idea. However, he investigates the photograph, sees the shape laterally reflected in the girl's eye and makes multiple large prints to discover how the picture was made. Unable to explain or debunk the photograph, Castle hastily travels to see Beatrice in a village called Birkenwell, where upon arrival he sees and recognises Templeton's daughters, Ana (Miriam Grant) and Clara (Hannah Bould), and follows them to their home. Beatrice tells Castle that the photograph no longer matters – she has seen the fairies. She asks him to meet her at the great tree in Birkenwell Woods the following day.
At the appointed time, Castle walks to the great tree, where Beatrice is waiting. Before he arrives, she removes her hat and shoes then climbs the tree. When he arrives, Castle discovers Beatrice's removed clothing, then finds her lifeless body on the ground. After making a statement at the local police station, Castle encounters the Templeton girls, who are greeted by their father Nicholas, a Christian minister.
Nicholas reluctantly allows Castle to remain since the girls seem to like him and he is concerned about their behavior. Castle discovers that Beatrice had been documenting her daughters' odd behavior, and in her notes finds that she had been experimenting with a distinctive rare flower. Having already noticed Ana and Clara consuming the flower themselves, Castle takes some himself and discovered that it allows him to see the fairies that Beatrice and her daughters saw.
Castle calls in his business partner and assistant to set up a photo shoot using his most advanced equipment. After consuming the flower again and having them photograph the experience, Castle concludes that fairies do exist, and that the flower allows the brain to slow down enough so that they can be seen and interacted with, as they normally move so fast that only the most advanced of cameras can photograph them. Castle's obsession comes to a head when one day, a fed-up Nicholas starts burning his equipment; although Castle is too deep under the flower's influence to initially care, he flies into a rage when some of the fairies drift too close and catch fire. Castle assaults and kills Nicholas and is subsequently arrested.
Refusing to defend himself, Castle is found guilty and sentenced to hang, while Ana and Clara are put into foster care, though they seem to care little about the situation. Castle bids farewell to his associates and faces his death without fear. The final scene returns to the Alps, where Castle is trying to save Anna-Marie. This time he is successful in pulling her back up to the path, and they embrace and continue walking.

Tags: psychedelic, fantasy, murder, suspenseful

Review:
Following a visit to a Philosophical Society meeting where he debunks the mystical by explaining tricks of the camera along side Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he is approached by a woman who has taken a photograph of her daughter with a fairy standing in her hand and is asked to try and disprove the pictures using empirical logic and the modern camera obscura.
Photographing Fairies is as surprising and touching a movie as it is haunting.
High-quality cinema at its best - great acting, a clever story, superb special effects, spell binding soundtrack, and an intriguing examination of the religious and philosophical questions we all face.
Toby Stephens gives a stunning performance as a character, Charles Castle who radiates Humanity and feeling, portraying the personal conflict of a man grasping for understanding years after the tragic accidental death of his wife on their honeymoon.
Its challenge is to the basis of belief itself, and begs to ask a single daunting question "What if heaven were as real as a place?" Much of the magic that makes Photographing Fairies such a resounding success is the elements of love / death / and the longing to recapture ones state of personal grace.
Plot finds Stephens as photographer Charles Castle, a level headed man who took delight in debunking the Cottingley Fairies pictures as being fake.
Released the same year, that film was called Fairy Tale: A True Story, a very nice film in its own right, but this is a very different animal.
Very much a unique film, Photographing Fairies has a number of words that frequently crop up when reading about, or discussing it.
Ultimately it's the word mystical that best sums it up, with the film weaving together intriguing premise's that in turn are played out with gorgeous visuals.
The movie poses many questions as it explores the likes of paganism, animism and the role of hallucinogens in bringing to life a world beyond the physical one we all know.
Refreshingly, we the audience are not fed the answers, and the film is all the better for it.More known for his work on music videos, Nick Willing blasted out of the directing blocks with this as his debut big screen offering.
Emily Woof (Velvet Goldmine/The Full Monty) also shines bright in the difficult (spiritual) romantic role, while the child actors are thankfully adorable and never annoying.A film to capture the imagination of those with an open mind or for those with a leaning to the mystical, Photographing Fairies is a little gem.
I happen to have a fascination with fairies so I figured this would be an interesting film.
Indeed I was right The first film I saw pertaining to the story of two young girls photographing fairies was FairyTale: A True Story which was cute but I constantly found myself yawning and wondering when it would end.
He sets out to find the truth, if fairies really do exist, and along the way he ends up discovering a world so precious and sacred that he'd do anything to keep it safe from harm.
A few years ago I stumbled across this book by Steve Szilagyi (quite a name he got himself there), I read it a couple of times, thought it was an entertaining story with some interesting themes...
Really brilliant use of slow motion, not just for kicks, as a gimmick, even though it looks ravishing as well, but actually done in a meaningful way with regards to the plot (though that's easier to see if you've read the book).The writers have changed a lot with regards to the plot; shuffled around, condensed, introduced new scenes/characters, and so on, but that's like it should be.
There is also the inherent problem a book like this one poses when turned into a movie; how do you visualize ideas and thoughts.
Film is a literal medium, and so it can't hide things the way language can, this film proofs that by coming up short in some of the books most magnificent sequences (but it improves on others); this isn't a fault from the filmmakers, what can they do after all, but it is a problem when they've chosen a story that is essentially more about mystical/spiritual question (going all new age here) then it is about the literal discovery of fairies.
Photographing Fairies (or Apparition as it was tagged by our local Pay TV provider) is on such movie.Toby Stephens plays Charles Castle (Stephens to me has some strikingly similar traits to Hugh Grant), who tragically lost his wife on the Swiss Alps.
The movie chronicles his struggles to come to grips with her death and how the possibility of an afterlife (I don't wish to give the story away)makes him obsessed to prove that there is such an afterlife.I was impressed by Stephens in this movie and am sure that bigger things will come his way.
Woof was very good in the Woodlanders and continues her fine form here.Ben Kingsley is also commanding in the movie and his counternance to Stephens desire to prove the existence of the fairies is the keystone of the movie's conclusion.I tend to like movies that have story lines that I have not come across before.
Appropriately, in a film full of echoes and symbols, this long shot out from Castle's wife's iris recalls his later, obsessive, photographic enlargement of another eye: that of one of the girls photographed with fairies.The death of his wife then reduces Castle further, through grief and shock, to a state almost like that of a somnambulist.
He walks through life, hovering between the shades, oblivious to fear and the concerns of the real world - as evidenced by the unexploded bomb he encounters without any sense of danger, ticking like the time piece he keeps to remember his wife.
Even when a new sexual relationship becomes a possibility, later in the film, he cannot rejoin this aspect of life though spiritual malaise.This thread is continued later in the scene later where Castle  enters the church to hear a sermon by the bereaved Kingsley.
Now he appears, bloodied like a victim in Macbeth, as the pale ghost at the ceremony..Castle's attempt to photograph fairies, spirits who hover between life and death, is obviously an attempt to capture something back from the spirit world that has captured his wife.
Such is the delicacy and subtlety of the films structure and symbolism, however, that at the end one could feasibly argue that Castle actually died with his wife on the mountain and - rather like in The Occurrence At Owl Bridge Creek - what has happened since the opening scenes has just been the dream of a dying man!Performances are generally excellent (although Ben Kingsley's wig and stare are slightly disconcerting).
Only at the end of the film does recognise that the bass-motif is an altered element of the famous Beethoven slow movement which plays throughout the last few scenes.
For a short while, fairies will exist in the small world containing only you and this movie..
Leave it to a British production company to bring to film an extraordinary story of the occult at a mature, intelligent level and in a spellbinding scenario tell the truth about the nature of spiritual realityall that there really is.
One of the best movies I have ever seen in my life and believe me I have seen quite many.With Beethoven's music this film becomes nearly perfect.It's shocking from start to end and what an end it is!
Don't let the title fool you into thinking that this is some children's movie about fairies.
Instead it's more about the dangers of "seeing is believing." The movie dances on the question:  Are these fairies real or am I hallucinating?
Whenever any of the characters becomes enticed by the fairies or uses piety as a shield, they end up causing grief for the others.Like many British movies, "Photographing Fairies" is elegant, formal and very carefully put together.
This film features many of the same characters as FT, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, two cute little girls, and the Theosophical Society, and theme, we are taken on a very dark journey that explores use of halluciongenic plants as a way to view the fairy folk.
There are no fairy tale happy endings here.Go ahead and rent this film and FT.
The reviews were merely making fun of the rather unconvincing fairies rather than looking at the film as a whole.
In fact I was not tempted to see it at all but ended up watching it while doing work experience as an usherette in a local cinema.The fairies are not the latest in technology but it is a small yet intensely beautiful and haunting film that I suspect could only be made outside of Hollywood.
What follows is a tale of obsession, magic, faith, violence and loss.The acting is superb and intense (Ben Kingsley plays a wonderfully malevolent vicar).
How can anyone watch this and not be struck dumb.The music is so haunting that it will reverberate in your head and soul for days after.How fantastic not have to endure "shoot em up" themes but to let fantasy run its course leaving you disturbed but in a wonderful way.This film is on a par with "Out of Africa" as my "dumbstuck" movies.The film ends but you can't move, your senses are so overwhelmed that you will be unable to regain reality for some time.This is a film for those who enjoy wonderful music and appreciate a plot that stirs emotions, imagination and the intellect..
It's hard to reallydescribe the movie -- part love story, part fantasy, with a little bit ofthe Big Question over exactly what the afterlife is.
Thecinematography is absolutely picturesque, almost like watching aMerchant Ivory production, but with a bit of fairy magic thrown in.Ben Kingsley is an interesting addition to the cast.
This film was inspired by the famous "Cottingley Fairy" photographs, where, in 1917, two girls produced pictures which they claimed showed fairies at the bottom of their garden.
In this film, a cynical photographer, still grieving over the death of his wife, becomes obsessed by some photographs which he believes show genuine fairies.The films well made, but it is very slow-moving.
The atmosphere is very somber, in fact the whole thing is surprisingly bleak.This had the misfortune to be released around the same time as "Fairy Tale: A True Story", which was also based on the Cottingley photographs, and was far more successful.
(and anyone disposed to fast forwarding nudity, the only sex scene in the movie has an important line at the end and you will miss the whole effect (which is great) if you skip it).
Photographing fairies is a film that juxtaposes Edwardian life with the supernatural and the advent of photographic technology.
Nick Willing's 1997 film has a stellar cast Toby Stephens plays the young ex-army photographer who after experiencing grief goes on a long emotional journey as he come to terms with the loss of his wife.
Stephen's character is still searching for the love of his life and I feel still questioning the absoluteness of death.
If you enjoyed the Harvey Keitel/Mel Gibson film "Fairy Tale: A True Story" but yearn for something more in the vein of dark fantasy...
And, yes, there are real fairies in this movie...
Not for children, this moving, beautiful film tells the story of hope and faith in a world where death is the common denominator.
If you love fairies, good acting, romance, and a tight story, this film is for you!.
This movie was beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted, and the story was excellent.
It will remind you of the times you were small and played at fairies yourself and make you wonder if maybe they were really there..
Not at all a children's movie despite the fantasy premise, this is surprisingly quite a dark mystery tale, even if it is a bit too whimsical for its own good.
The film puts a unique spin on ideas about fairies, and it has some things to say about believing what one wants to believe.
He leads you through this lovely story and makes you believe there is another world beyond where we exist.
He had a great supporting cast Emily Woof, the beautiful Rachel Shelly, Ben Kingsley the little girls..
It had an endearing love story of a man obsessed with the wife he lost embedded in this mystery of the fairies.
Yet this film is so much better than most movies I see today.
It has a good story line, mysterious and intriguing, great acting, what can I say but do watch it if you haven't seen it you will be pleasantly surprised..
When my husband called from the video store asking if we should rent this movie, I thought it was the recent film "Fairy Tale" but the title had been changed.
Whereas "Fairy Tale" had a very short run in the US, this movie did not and I've never heard or seen any of the actors before except Ben Kingsley & Edward Hardwicke (son of actor Cedric Hardwicke).
Photographing Fairies is a deceptive title for a film that is more than a simple tale of two little girls who claimed to photograph little flying sprites in rural Birkinwell, England.
Templeton's wife Beatrice approached Castle with the photograph offering evidence of fairies with their young daughters.
Wonderful period costuming, locations, and soundtrack have been commented on by others and all in all, Photographing Fairies is worth the watch..
I thought it was a repeat of the other fairy film, realised it wasn't and it thoroughly captivated me through to the end, by then you have an idea what may happen.
It just seems a shame the 'love interest' in the film ends up unrequited, or did I miss something?
It's also a beautiful movie about photography, one that sees its magic and its illusionary character from a very different angle than Antonioni's "Blow-up", but then marginally comes to similar conclusions about the art.(By the way, I believe that the "factual error" pointed out on this board, that photography has always been forbidden in British courts, is actually a purposeful licence rather than mistake: Charles is bombarded by flashes the same way like when he tried to capture the fairies, and the sound also resembles the actual bombings from the WW1 sequence.
It therefore makes a very nice touch.) Another great asset of the story is that we never know what is what - I keep wondering which world and which story is real: the one that we are immersed in after Charles recovers in Switzerland, or the one that unites the beginning and the end: the attempt at saving the wife's life.
He is blind when he is being treated in Switzerland, and all the main story may as well be his ravings when he's dying: we never see him regain sight and walk, we are moved to the trenches immediately, and he does not behave like a living man there.And maybe Charles is a fairy to begin with?
The inverted sequence of the ball, the mystery of the door - all this points at some unrealistic touch to the main storyline.The actors are superb; I wish Toby Stephens played more characters like this, his Charles is an absolute masterpiece, particularly in the last scenes.
The girls are fine (both Emily Woof and Frances Barber give really grasping performances), and so is Edward Hardwicke Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - a nice touch in the story, which is after all based on the hoax that played such a prominent role in his life..
The second reason was that I'd seen that other fairy-movie based on the same events involving a photograph showing a true fairy at the beginning of the 20th century.
That movie was FAIRYTALE: A TRUE STORY and was released the same year as PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES.
Even though I recall liking FAIRYTALE a little bit more, I still have to say that Nick Willing made an astonishingly beautiful debut with PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES.The movie is part love-story, part fairy-tale mystery, part drama and that's what slows the general development towards the final conclusion a bit down.
The acting was very decent all the time, especially Toby Stephens playing Charles Castle.
The movie has a very nice musical score by Simon Boswell, but it does feel a bit too dominant at times.
There were quite a lot of elements in the story I liked (the flower used as a drug to alter perception, the origin of the fairies,...) and I also liked the ending.
Sadly the real world isn't perfect, end of story.
This is a metaphysical fantasy, a type of story I'd like to see more of in films.
(It is not a dramatization of Conan Doyle's fairy folly, although Doyle is a character in the story.) Unlike most films it presents a conflict of philosophies of life, death, sex, and religion, through characters representing the opposing viewpoints.
But this film is far from poor, it tells a type of story I particularly like, yet I disliked it very strongly.
Two girl cousins claimed to have seen fairies and took photographs with them.
Their claims generated a lot of interest and followership including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who believed their stories after subjecting the photographs to authentication tests.It was later in the 80s that the cousins admitted the photos were fake after advanced technology in computer and photography showed discrepancies in the pictures.However, this film is still a gem.
I'm neither an attention seeker nor depressed but PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES is not a great film.
The movie is beautifully filmed and the props are great, as is the acting (NOTE: supporting cast is particularly noteworthy).
In the end though, PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES either is trying to do too much or, alternately, is not sure what it wants to do!