Cinema Tuesdays Review

Paranormal? I am all over that. Of course normal is great for brakes, elevators and airplanes, but all of that deals with cold engineering; science. The paranormal or supernatural lives in the realm of magic - unexplored possibilities, mysteries, surprises. Since life can be too normal (April 15th is coming up), I welcome the chance for the supernatural. This is where the film, "Crop Circles, Quest for Truth" starts off. First off I wish this film existed in the mid 1990’s. Crop Circles were big news on the paranormal front then. I have to admit that I sort of lost interest in the subject when a couple of older Brits admitted to faking dozens of the circles and starting the fad of crop circle hoaxing - the nocturnal art of pushed over grain. "Crop Circles, Quest for Truth", a film by William Gazecki, pursues the notion that crop circles are real and not faked phenomena.

What started in Australia as “saucer nests” in the 1960’s has grown into world wide phenomena, the epicenter of which is southern England. The timing of the circles has to coincide with nearly ripe grain, so there are beautiful shots of pastoral England that bring to mind the music of Ralph Vaughan-Williams and Frederick Delius. While classical music was not used, appropriate and subtle music by David Langley Hamilton certainly fills the bill. The checker board of Ektachrome greens seen in the aerial shots is stunning and reminds us of any movie about the Battle of Britain we have ever seen. The opulence of the presentation would have been better served if film were used instead of video stock dubbed to film, but I am sure that cost was a consideration here.

This film brings the viewer up to date on the massive amount of research that goes on in this field (pun intended). There are three groups represented - one, the E.T. crowd that sees in the circles messages of a coming and better contact between us and them (face to face and not tractor-beam to grain). The second group is comprised by science nerds who speak of iono-sphereic plasma bursts and microwaves; not surprisingly these techno-geeks are American. The last and most memorable group is British and speaks in riddles. Drawing heavily on Druidic and Celtic mythos, they introduce us to the notions of crop circles as evidence of an intelligence worshiping the land as a religious object. To them everything from carved chalk horses to Celtic crosses is to be found in the bewildering complexity of crop circle designs. To their credit, not one of these enthusiasts spoke of faeries running amuck in the fields. On the other hand there is no fashion sense to this group: they are the real “brown bread and sandals set”. While not sporting any “Frodo lives” T-shirts - there was plenty of outer wear festooned with crop circles and the secret geometry that gives them meaning to these neo pagans. One word of warning: I have never seen so many bad, spotty beards in all my life. Like gray and brown lichen, these growths signify a life lived defying convention.

What does come across is a touching sincerity with all of the investigators; these people really believe in what they are doing. The film is not without its inconsistencies, there is more than a little irony when an investigator pointing out the complex nature of the woven grain, implying humans could not do anything so intricate and on this arm… a wristwatch, which is a hundred times more complex and, and in stunning comparison to the circles, useful!

William Gazecki gives us his best shot. There are some mysteries here, but the final climax of aerial shots of crop circle masterpieces only prompts the question: if this phenomenon is natural or alien, why did it evolve, as if humans making the circles got better at it? I remain unconvinced. Everything about this curiosity addresses human and not alien concerns. Fractals, crosses, and the geometry are human musings; the beauty of the circles is calculated to human standards. In the end there is the question: why would anyone wish to communicate using a method that exists far away from where most of us live - in patterns of ornately pushed over grain? This is the Uri Geller conundrum. Claiming telekinesis, Geller (an Israeli magician) could bend keys and spoons. Any competent magician could accomplish the same feats with misdirection and quick hands. Why go through the effort of bending keys with your mind when there are easier ways to make keys and spoons useless? It seems the more these careful researchers investigate crop circles - the more some force keenly attuned to their human needs manufactures them to be investigated. Curious, what?

3/15/2004

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