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!
Review of Photographing Fairies
