Photographing Fairies (1997) User Reviews

I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!

[Monica4937 · 8/10 · 24 February 2005]

I was up late one night and this was playing on the Sci-fi channel. 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. Photographing Fairies is also about the two girls capturing a fairy in a photograph, but instead of focusing on them the story really revolves around Charles Castle. Toby Stephens (whom most of us know from Die Another Day) plays Castle, a tormented photographer that refuses to do weddings because of a loss he suffered after only one day of being married. 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. 8/10

A thinking man's fairy movie

[sutcal · 7/10 · 4 January 2000]

Occasionaly I am pleasantly suprised by the quality of a movie that I had never heard of prior to watching it. 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. I was also impressed with Emily Woof who plays the romantic (if that can be said) support to Stephens. 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. This is one such movie. The pleasing aspect is that the acting supports the plot which leads to a pleasant viewing experience.

This movie gets my thumbs up 7/10

Seeing is believing, but should you believe???

[EllisDee · 8/10 · 9 January 1999]

Don't let the title fool you into thinking that this is some children's movie about fairies. The premise of "Photographing Fairies" is not so much about fairies themselves. 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? It's also about the clash between mysticism and rationality. 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. Also, Ben Kingsley gives a formidable performance as the reverend. Despite all these positive qualities, it does feel rather slow-paced at times and may challenge anyone with a short attention span. Nevertheless, this movie deserves high marks. I give it an 8.

Wonderful, Magical, Spiritual!

[tinker99 · 14 April 2002]

Photographing Fairies was loosely based on the book of the same name by Steven Szylagi. It deals with a fictional fairy incident of two girls, in post World War 1 England, who claimed to have photographed fairies; as seen through the cynical eyes of a photographer bent on proving the girls false. Charles Castle, a British photographer who specializes in trick photography. He is a man haunted by the death of his wife. 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. This begins his adventure into a world he has never believed in and has gone out of his way to disprove. What he finds is unexpected and spiritually magical. 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. Love, death, grief, spirituality, and rebirth / redemption; these are the critical elements that weave throughout this movie. 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. Ben Kingsley offers a ruggedly convincing yet disturbing performance as the country preacher (and father of the girls) ministering to his flock amidst the spiritual void of his times in a post WWI English village. He masks the feelings of pride, avarice, rage, homicide, jealousy, infidelity, gluttony, nearly all the seven deadly sins and more. His is the perfect counter to the fantasy elements and brings a convincing sense of realism to the storyline. The girls in this movie are surprisingly innocent in their well-scripted dialogue and action scenes. They are pivotal characters to the childlike view that pits adult sensibilities and reason to the spiritual test.

The music was a subtle treasure throughout the movie. Its main theme is played as everything from a dance tune to a funeral dirge, and it will stay with you far after the movie. It is that `haunting' quality of the tune that adds that extra ethereal touch to the total effect of the movie. The 'death song' is a part of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, and has been recorded by Sarah Brightman as Figlio Perduto. The movie has definite religious undertones. Photographing Fairies makes no distinctions about beliefs. The preacher-father character is the pastor for a small church, and the heaven ideas can be adapted to suit almost any taste. 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. A feeling of redemption as real and achievable as the magic of a child's innocence. No matter what your philosophical/religious beliefs are, you will be moved by what you feel in this movie. Its touching message will compel you to view this movie over-and-over again.

My brief review of the film

[sol- · 7/10 · 2 June 2005]

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. Both the audio and visual effects and interesting, there is some nice gliding cinematography and the music is very fitting too. Still, the film fails to answer some pressing questions, some sequences add little to the product, and lastly towards the end it really drags, taking much too long to finish. But either way, it is one of the most creative, oddly fascinating British films that I have seen from the 1990s.

Hesitant fairy tale for grown-ups

[Vomitron_G · 7/10 · 3 April 2006]

What I probably enjoyed most about PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES was that it's a different take on the afterlife-theme. As much as it is a compelling movie that draws you into its mystery, it also hesitates in settling on one genre which makes the movie a bit slow at times. Luckily the story is intriguing enough to keep you interested. I really wanted to see this film because of two reasons. One being director Nick Willing. I had already seen his DOCTOR SLEEP (aka HYPNOTIC) and THE RIVER KING which I enjoyed very much. 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. Still, the swifting between genres happens very smoothly. The acting was very decent all the time, especially Toby Stephens playing Charles Castle. His character is given a lot of depth. He is a war-photographer who loses his fresh wife in a mountain-accident the day after their wedding. He then stumbles through his life a bit cold-hearted and unaffected by danger. After the war he turns to the routine of portrait photography. Until the day a woman walks into his office, showing him a blurry photo of a girl holding a fairy in her hand. After some tests, Charles is convinced the photo isn't fake and sets off to solve the mystery.

Like I said, Charles Castle has a lot of psychological content, which is always good for a protagonist. The only problem concerning the actors I had, was with Ben Kingsley. It's a bit sad, really, but after seeing him in BLOODRAYNE and A SOUND OF THUNDER, I simply cannot take the poor man seriously anymore. The sets and costumes were all convincing as well as the occasional effects (only the scenes on the snowy mountain were clearly filmed on a set, making it all look a bit fake). The movie has a very nice musical score by Simon Boswell, but it does feel a bit too dominant at times. Even though I figured out very early the exact origin of the fairies, I couldn't possibly predict the actions of the protagonist towards the end. 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. But I thoroughly disliked the little epilogue on the mountain. What the hell were the filmmakers (probably the producers) trying to say with it? It would be very stupid to make us believe that between the prologue and epilogue the movie simply didn't happen. That might work for a psychological horror movie, but not for this type of film. So I'll rule that option out. I think I'll simply please myself with the explanation that the scriptwriter was trying to say that in a perfect world, Charles Castle would have been able to save his wife on the mountain. Sadly the real world isn't perfect, end of story. That would work more for me than the producers trying to shove a forced happy-end feeling down our throats. And otherwise I would deduct a serious amount of points from the over-all rating for PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES, which I refuse to do. Because this movie is beautiful and worth seeing.

Unfairly overlooked

[david-bartlett-2 · 10/10 · 30 November 2005]

Such a shame that this beautiful film has been so overlooked and dismissed. I can think of few films that deal with the issue of loss and grief so sensitively and with such original flair. Nick Willing's film is tender, mysterious, moving and confident. And, often quite rare in modern cinema, his characters actually deliver and go on a genuine journey. In short, this film takes us somewhere. I believe Mr Willing and his producers have been criticised heavily for their fairy effects: the fairies that appear are sometimes lithe, naked little nymphs, and sometimes plump little men. Both are absolutely perfectly judged, in my opinion, providing something as far from Disney as possible, but entirely in keeping with the Edwardian mood of the whole piece. Moreover, the lighting, pacing, over-cranking and scoring of the sequences wherein the fairies appear are masterfully handled. As a film-maker myself, I find this film an inspiration. The end of the film is unbelievably balletic and touching. Ben Kingsley, Toby Stephens and Edward Hardwicke are splendid. The score by Simon Boswell is also an absolute gem, and it's a shame this isn't on general release on CD. One of the great British films of the end of the century.

fascinating little movie

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 3 March 2015]

It's 1912. Charles Castle (Toby Stephens) loses his new bride (Rachel Shelley) in a snow crevasse in Switzerland. During the war, he works as a war photographer not caring about dying. After the war in London, he takes portraits of people inserting their lost love ones into the pictures and debunks a photo forgery of fairies in front of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's group. Beatrice Templeton brings him photos of her daughters Clara and Ana with fairies. Charles can't find any tampering in the image and decides to find out for himself in the small town of Burkinwell. Beatrice tells him that she had seen the fairies herself but then he finds her dead in the woods. Her husband Reverend Templeton (Ben Kingsley) is much respected. Linda (Emily Woof) is the kids' nanny. The kids eat a flower that allow them into the world of fairies.

It's the feel of a bit of moody light horror at the start. It could have gone that way but it goes more to the magical fantasy. Yet it's not surreal or fanciful. It's a very fascinating unusual mix of tones. Ben Kingsley has the juicier part and plays it very well. The movie climaxes with an interesting fight but then it fades a little. It needs to wrap up a little quicker. That's probably my only minor complaint.

Impressive

[Signet · 9/10 · 20 January 2002]

Far better than I expected and wrongfully neglected. A dark and profound examination of agnosticism and faith that is quite remarkable, with unexpected twists and shocks. I very much recommend this film, particularly the performance by Toby Stephens who is, in a word, amazing.

A Touching Gem

[tonynworah · 7/10 · 23 March 2011]

A touching movie obviously inspired by the real events that took place in the early 1920s in England. Two girl cousins claimed to have seen fairies and took photographs with them. The fairies came to be known as the Cottingley Fairies. 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

A True Story?

[MarkB-11 · 1/10 · 24 January 2000]

This is not the true story. It is the darkest possible fiction derived from the events. It endorses suicide, morose obsession with death, a totally gratuitous sideswipe at organized religion in general (and the Anglican Church, in particular) and generally provides a nihilistic, pointless world view from which filmgoers, I suppose, are intended to walk away, richer in their poverty and more hopeful in their hopelessness.

Utter trash, though attractively performed by a capable cast. That anyone would suggest this is a true rendering, however, is very much false advertising. You want the real story? Rent 'Fairy Tale'. That's the real story. See if you can find any correspondence between the facts presented in either case. I only found one: the girls who made the original photographs were pre-pubescent.

Sprite delight.

[hitchcockthelegend · 9/10 · 7 April 2011]

Photographing Fairies is directed by Nick Willing who co-adapts with Chris Harrald from the book of the same name written by Steve Szilagyi. It stars Toby Stephens, Emily Woof, Ben Kingsley, Frances Barber & Philip Davis. Music is scored by Simon Boswell and John DeBorman is the cinematographer. Plot finds Stephens as photographer Charles Castle, a level headed man who took delight in debunking the Cottingley Fairies pictures as being fake. However, this brings him into contact with the Templeton family and what appears to be an authentic looking image of a tiny fairy. It's the beginning of journey that will prove to be as magical as it is dangerous.

No! This is not the fairy film about the girls who faked the Cottingley Fairies pictures. 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. Weird, hypnotic, beautiful, tragic, odd, haunting, dreamy, surreal and poetic, any one of those can be used to describe Nick Willing's movie. 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. Charles Castle's search for the truth is not merely that, himself in grief, as he searches for physical evidence, it leads him to something more, arguably something all encompassing and not worldly. 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. That he hasn't gone on to far better things is a mystery given the first class work he does here. Some of the scenes here are remarkable, truly, and aided considerably by DeBorman's pin-sharp photography he's made a visually hypnotic interest story that's paced to precision. Simon Boswell provides a swirling romantic score, flecked with mystic tones and nicely entwined with Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, it's very tonally correct and worthy of re-visits on its own. The cast are on good form, with Kingsley doing creepy folk religious and Stephens a nice line in a man hurting within, showing cynical arrogance, yet opening up his layers the further he delves into the mystery. Come the finale, a tragic-beauty finale at that, the film has come full circle and it's credit to Stephens that he has been able to carry us along with him at all times. 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. 9/10

Spoilsport Alert!

[samkan · 5/10 · 18 March 2012]

This is review #39 and the average vote is near "9". I'm neither an attention seeker nor depressed but PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES is not a great film. There are a lot of "ways" in which P-F may have entertained, been successful, etc., but to risk adopting a cliché or canned response, P-F doesn't click on any level. It fails to serve as a chronicle or historical note to the actual history of events (as several reviewers pointed out, the British fairy "craze" was an actual late 19th century phenomona) . Though I cannot over-fault P-F for not delving into events as did FAIRY TALE (It has the right to try and stand on its own) there's a scene where we pass several rooms wherein everyone's got a a crystal ball, is doing a seance, i.e., as if to say all of England is presently chasing fairies! Neither did I find P-F to be a particularly great love story, exploration of the Afterlife, or conflict of wills. We're to be convinced of the existence of fairies on very little support, as well as introduction of a "flower drug" as nothing more than a useful plot devise. Our hero's lost love angst is, arguably, to be taken for granted and, should you "buy" such, the role of his new sweetheart-in-waiting becomes a loose end. With all the hub-bub about "afterlife" and life-as-dream, the resolution we appear to be given is nothing of the sort but rather a "time travel" package; i.e., back to real life again instead of into another world. Abjectly wasted and totally without benefit to P-F is Ben Kingsley's lost-his-way preacher. Other than dying to serve the film's plot ending, I can easily envision cutting the preacher's entire role without affect to the rest of the story. 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!

Interesting

[DaveNoodles · 9 January 2006]

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... and then I pretty much forgot all about it. Until now, where I stumbled across it on DVD, didn't even know it was made as a film, and so I gave it a shot yesterday, not hoping for much (tiny British films aren't always the epitome of excitement).

A positive surprise. The film is about a British photographer who's specialized in trick photography after he came home from WW1. He's a rational man, to the point where he's almost dead inside (the very opposite of Arthur Conan Doyle who also shows up in the tale, played by the guy who played Watson in the TV show btw) but that changes when a woman brings him some photos she claims show her daughters playing in their garden with a bunch of... you guessed it, fairies.

This is essentially a fantasy film, but it's not quite like most other fantasy films; questions about belief is the central theme, but it's stretched and played around with so it's constantly intriguing, even for a cynical agnostic (atheist if you're Christian) like me. Is heaven a state of mind, and if so, does that make it less worth? How do you find truth in life, and is it ever better to lie about the truth for the sake of those you love? Thematically they've incorporated many of the more "out there" ideas from the book in rather clever ways; drugs, sex, violence, are also themes in Szilagyi's innocently looking book, and the filmmakers have tried to stay true to this. This isn't some film about small creatures with crowns on their heads who smiles a lot, nor is it a funny Spielbergian flick, it's an exploration of grief and obsession and how those things can affect our beliefs, shake us to the very core. Yeah, it doesn't sound very jolly, which I guess it isn't, but it's interesting.

The cast is excellent, the music and photography far better then I had expected (same goes for the limited fx). Going by the cover and BBC's name on it somewhere, I actually thought it was maybe a TV movie. 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. Any attempt to take the book directly from the page would've failed miserably. They've even introduced a completely new intro & ending as well. It works like a charm, though some might find it a bit too convenient.

I did have some problems with it though... the lead is deliberately almost always kept at arms length, which is okay in some ways, but leads to detachment. I ended up finding his destiny more stimulating and interesting then gripping. There is also the inherent problem a book like this one poses when turned into a movie; how do you visualize ideas and thoughts. How do you visualize symbols? 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.

Anyway, despite my few complaints, and despite the fact that this is not a mind blowing, life altering, hyper super fantastic religious experience of a film, I still highly recommend it. It's a rather unique and different attempt to play in the fantasy pen, and that is to be applauded I think. It's also pretty entertaining... if your idea of a good time is a bunch of Brits running around in gardens searching for fairies that is.

Magnificent

[connellj · 10/10 · 17 January 2008]

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.

Haunting, eerie and worth seeing

[Lori S · 9/10 · 15 February 1999]

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. But I am very glad we saw this movie anyway. 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). While it's true the photographer in this story specializes in mounting photographed "heads" of recently-killed soldiers on the body of a "model" posing with the grieving parents, it was a fascinating & haunting story that took you beyond WWI. The fairies, who are not just nubile young women, were beautifully created, and it was so sad to see some burn up later in the film. It makes you wonder, were the fairies a result of hallucinogenic edible flowers, or the vivid imagination of 2 lonely girls? Some people believe what they really WANT to believe.. Very good acting throughout, interesting story, wonderful scenery. Definitely worth seeing. Now I want to rent out "Fairy Tale," which I skipped at the theaters...

A beautifully realized story of a truth on film.

[merrywood · 10/10 · 15 December 2002]

The simple, understated title of this film disguises the imposing grandeur of this superb dramatic production. 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 is left at a loss of words to describe this triumph of filmmaking in comprehensible English language.

Set in the waning years of the Victorian era and the end of the Gilded Age, the story is compelling and engrossing. It is meticulously rendered into film with fine production values, flawlessly written, cast and directed.

Those not schooled in quantum physics or studied in extradimensional existence theory or metaphysics will more than likely be lost and left groping for answers but for those that are, here is a feast of poetic truth and the fullness of the verity of life.

A superb British Fantasy

[FilmFlaneur · 14 September 2000]

Along with other great English fantasy films like The Company of Wolves, Things to Come, The Devil Rides Out and Jonathan Millers's BBC-filmed production of Alice in Wonderland, this is an intelligent and complex production, miles away in mood and concern from the typical American product. In a film that reminds one of his father Robert's The Asphyx, (as it also involves the attempt to film the supernatural by nineteenth century photographers) Toby Stephens is ideal as the intense, mourning photographer Castle, haunted by the abrupt death of his wife.

The central concern of the film, that of seeing, or not seeing (or perhaps more perhaps *comprehending*, or not - is established in the opening shot of the film: the blurred face of Castle alone in the group photograph he takes of his wife and others. In an image which anticipates those of the fairies later on, he is the one blurred, here the 'ghost' on his film. 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. Castle doesn't care. He wants to die - a sense of foreboding which stays with the viewer from the beginning to the end of the film. He even 'photographs the dead' in his studio, witnessed by his work for the soldier's parents. 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. Earlier that morning he has taken the flower-drug and has 'died' watching the fairies. 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). Those who found the actual fairies disappointing in effect were perhaps expecting something grander. Some of Castle's hallucinations reminded me of Jacob's Ladder and Kingsley's demise of the killer's suicide in Peeping Tom.

As a last instance of the film's care with presentation and sophistication, one may take the music. The chief elements that reoccur are a sombre dirge like bass-motif and a light waltz. 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. Like Castle himself, it is transfigured - or 'completed' by events.

Strange but compelling

[Freddie-6 · 8/10 · 4 January 2000]

I really enjoyed this movie, although for a while I was unsure as to whether it was meant to be a drama, science fiction, or comedy.

I think I understood the surprise ending. The acting, locations and period dress where all excellent as you would expect from the British who really know how to make such movies. I gave it 8/10.

Brilliant!

[Malkavian_the_Martyr · 10/10 · 31 October 2002]

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! If you can,do watch this movie and consider "love" and "life" once more.

From the next world

[kyra16 · 10/10 · 9 February 1999]

This has to be one of the best fairy movies ever made. It's abstract, but it's also logical. The acting in the movie is wonderful! Toby Stevens is great as always, Ben Kingsley is wonderful, all the females of the picture are very good. And the faries are pretty cool. This is an all round good film. Go rent it.

A Darker, Metaphysical Take on FAIRY TALE: A TRUE STORY

[lydia · 19 December 1998]

A darker, more metaphysical take on FAIRY TALE: A TRUE STORY which came out also in 1997. Where FT is suitable for older kids, this one certainly is not. 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. Let your kids enjoy FT, and after you tuck them into bed, watch PF and spend the rest of your evening comparing and contrasting the surprisingly similar and strikingly different films..

a gem

[Goldmine · 9/10 · 20 August 1999]

At the time of release and now this film is tragically undervalued. 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. It is a film about grief, faith and mysticism. The lead character is a man who puts pictures of dead soldiers (from WW1) into family pictures who is haunted by the loss of his wife. He is confronted by a woman who has a picture of fairies which with all his expertise he can not disprove so he goes back with her to investigate. 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). There are scenes which are purely cinematic, especially those of the dead wife dancing and her fall in to the snow.

I would recommend this film to anyone who wants a little more out of a film. The imagery and the feelings behind it will last in your memory for a long time.

Seeing Is Not Believing -- It's More

[AZINDN · 9/10 · 30 March 2006]

The schism between belief and science, religion and technology, the afterlife and end of life, childhood innocence and adult reality, are all themes which flow through this marvelous film. 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. During the latter quarter of the 19th century and into the 20th century, beliefs about civilization as the privilege of modern western society was shaken by the reality of modern social ills culminating with the devastation wreaked by WWI.

From this groundwork, two men loose their wives - Charles Castle, a grieving photographer who lost his wife on their honeymoon and earns his living by creating memorial photographs of dead soldiers for grieving families. The second and darker character is a country parson, Rev. Templeton whose very calling relies on humanity's ultimate desire to believe in something more, in life after death but which he has not maintained. Templeton's wife Beatrice approached Castle with the photograph offering evidence of fairies with their young daughters. Castle analyzes the image and arrives at the conclusion no trick photography was involved. He sets out to discover the "truth" of the image with mind-altering results.

Although somewhat heavy-handed in some symbolic references to Christian beliefs, this is balanced by the notion of fairies as pre-Christian elemental beings of Nature. In addition, the use of an organic flower is key to the transition to "slow time" that enables whoever consumes it to see what is invisible to the naked eye of modern man, and ultimately, to technology. 19th century photography enabled audiences to possess visual evidence of the living and the dead as well as the spiritual as the trends for post-mortem and spirit photography was fashionable for the Victorians. As Castle's beliefs are replaced with new mystical experiences, Rev. Templeton is adamant to thwart any efforts that deny his beliefs and self-indulgent practices.

This is a subtle storyline that belies the title and it is all for the better. Superior acting from Toby Stevenson and Ben Kingsley lift the story to a level that leaves the audience pondering several questions that become more intriguing on multiple viewings. Wonderful period costuming, locations, and soundtrack have been commented on by others and all in all, Photographing Fairies is worth the watch.

Very nice indeed

[JayJay-2 · 9/10 · 2 October 1998]

This movie was horrendously misinterpreted on the back cover of the box. We have a problem here with incoherent and misleading comments which, essentially, is what any consumer is likely to read first of all before deciding whether to rent the movie or not. On the back it said it was about a photographer who helps people find their loved ones after the war, which couldn't actually be further from the truth. This somehow made the experience even better when I watched the movie: I never expected the fairies (I must say I was a little puzzled by the credits in the beginning of the movie: "Fairies by so and so"), but didn't give it much thought until later. This movie turned out to be one of the best I've ever watched, containing deep emotions and a thrilling intrigue sure to keep anybody who is into mysticism alert throughout the entire movie. The angles of photography were almost perfect: I felt like I was inside of the movie at times. The acting was marvellous (despite anything anybody might say about this. I recently read a review of this film saying all the acting was lousy. I can not stress the importance of not believing this enough: The actors were warmhearted and sincere and made you believe their grief and sorrows were genuine (not much happiness in this movie)). If you have a chance, you should watch this movie if anything I say above strikes the slightest cord in you. For a short while, fairies will exist in the small world containing only you and this movie.