Two little girls -- eight and twelve years old -- in rural Yorkshire get hold of their Dad's camera and return with pictures of stereotypical tiny fairies during World War One. The photos get into the hands of the Theosophical Society and then the press and cause a great to-do. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle (O'Toole) and Houdini (Keitel) are swept up in the investigation.
First things first. The two little girls are as cute as all get out. The older one is thoughtful and reserved. The younger one is expressive and whimsical. (The first will grow up loving wisely; the second will love too well.) The younger girl has even features and may grow up to be quite beautiful and well known if she decides to pursue an acting career. I can't remember the names of the actresses but both are splendid in their roles. How do you get kids that young to act so well on screen? At the same time, we have to be careful about believing the tales that kids bring us. Joan of Arc was only a teen ager, and St. Bernadette was fourteen when she had her visions. And let's not forget that the witch hunts of Salem, Massachusetts, were begun because of the fairy tales spun by a handful of girls the same age as the ones in this movie. So watch out.
Okay. The second thing that impressed me is the location. Rarely has West (or North) Yorkshire looked so ravishing. It's summer and the hills are like slight sea swells, criss-crossed by stone walls. And the place where the girls claim to have found the fairies! It's tranquil, placid, languorous, bewitching. There's a trickling rill that spreads out and runs a few inches deep across flat gray rocks, in some spots forming miniature pools. Overhead are drooping branches. And it's all surrounded by light forests and fields of pale purple flowers. I'm telling you, if you lie too long next to that brook, especially in the light of a full moon, you too will be overcome by your collective unconscious and the sprites and elves will come fluttering forth.
Of course the two little girls are frauds, but consider the times. For Europe, unlike America, the first war was a horrendous bloody catastrophe that accomplished nothing in the long run and had little cause in the first place. And in the previous generation, science seemed to have made great advances and offered up a challenge to belief in the supernatural -- meaning no afterlife, no heaven or hell, no nothing. Damned Darwin and Freud and their acolytes and bulldogs. Conan-Doyle had just lost a son pointlessly. It's no wonder the two little liars became sensations. Like the magic of the fairy home, mysticism was in the air. For a similar story from the same period, see "Miss Morrison's Ghosts." It's a slow movie, especially if you've recently been fed a diet of slam-bang action movies. It's done in a classical ("old-fashioned") style with a mostly still camera. Yet there are moments of tension and drama. And the acting is superb. Peter O'Toole is a very gentlemanly and sad Conan-Doyle. And Keitel -- who looks great in his stage make up as Houdini -- is the friendliest of skeptics. Supporting parts are well done and, as I say, it would be hard to improve upon the two girls. The only sour note is the villainous reporter (McInernny), a gawky and ambitious character with a long neck and tiny jaw who undergoes his own comic conversion.
It all ends, appropriately, with dozens of fairies buzzing around like dragonflies, although they're all fakes.
First things first. The two little girls are as cute as all get out. The older one is thoughtful and reserved. The younger one is expressive and whimsical. (The first will grow up loving wisely; the second will love too well.) The younger girl has even features and may grow up to be quite beautiful and well known if she decides to pursue an acting career. I can't remember the names of the actresses but both are splendid in their roles. How do you get kids that young to act so well on screen? At the same time, we have to be careful about believing the tales that kids bring us. Joan of Arc was only a teen ager, and St. Bernadette was fourteen when she had her visions. And let's not forget that the witch hunts of Salem, Massachusetts, were begun because of the fairy tales spun by a handful of girls the same age as the ones in this movie. So watch out.
Okay. The second thing that impressed me is the location. Rarely has West (or North) Yorkshire looked so ravishing. It's summer and the hills are like slight sea swells, criss-crossed by stone walls. And the place where the girls claim to have found the fairies! It's tranquil, placid, languorous, bewitching. There's a trickling rill that spreads out and runs a few inches deep across flat gray rocks, in some spots forming miniature pools. Overhead are drooping branches. And it's all surrounded by light forests and fields of pale purple flowers. I'm telling you, if you lie too long next to that brook, especially in the light of a full moon, you too will be overcome by your collective unconscious and the sprites and elves will come fluttering forth.
Of course the two little girls are frauds, but consider the times. For Europe, unlike America, the first war was a horrendous bloody catastrophe that accomplished nothing in the long run and had little cause in the first place. And in the previous generation, science seemed to have made great advances and offered up a challenge to belief in the supernatural -- meaning no afterlife, no heaven or hell, no nothing. Damned Darwin and Freud and their acolytes and bulldogs. Conan-Doyle had just lost a son pointlessly. It's no wonder the two little liars became sensations. Like the magic of the fairy home, mysticism was in the air. For a similar story from the same period, see "Miss Morrison's Ghosts." It's a slow movie, especially if you've recently been fed a diet of slam-bang action movies. It's done in a classical ("old-fashioned") style with a mostly still camera. Yet there are moments of tension and drama. And the acting is superb. Peter O'Toole is a very gentlemanly and sad Conan-Doyle. And Keitel -- who looks great in his stage make up as Houdini -- is the friendliest of skeptics. Supporting parts are well done and, as I say, it would be hard to improve upon the two girls. The only sour note is the villainous reporter (McInernny), a gawky and ambitious character with a long neck and tiny jaw who undergoes his own comic conversion.
It all ends, appropriately, with dozens of fairies buzzing around like dragonflies, although they're all fakes.