Counter-Currents
  • Archives
  • Authors
  • T&C
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
  • Webzine
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • Mailing List
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Comments feed
    • Podcast feed

LEVEL2

  • Webzine
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • Mailing List
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Comments feed
    • Podcast feed
  • Archives
  • Authors
  • T&C
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
Print
July 23, 2015 3 comments

Albion’s Hidden Numina
The Falling

Christopher Pankhurst

1,120 words

TheFallingWatching Carol Morley’s new film, The Falling, I found myself wondering, slightly obsessively, exactly which year it was set in. I settled on 1970 because the visual cues in the home of the main character, Lydia, suggested that strange point in time where hallucinatory sixties psychedelia ossified into lurid home furnishings. Subsequent googling revealed that it was set in 1969. That it was possible for the film to communicate its period to within a year (without any help from contemporary songs on the soundtrack) is a testament both to the early seventies’ distinctive character and the film’s brilliant depiction of it.

The Falling tells the tale of an outbreak of fainting fits that spreads through a girls’ school in England. Co-funded by the British Film Institute and the BBC there is a reasonable expectation that the film will be hampered by its budget and by the persistent tendency for English filmmaking to feel indebted to its elder sibling, the theatre. The Falling turns both of these weaknesses into strengths by limiting its exterior filming to a small pond and oak tree in the school grounds. The intensity with which these outdoor scenes are filmed is such that the vivid green and golden hues become semi-hallucinatory, and the landscape is suffused with a deeply colourful tinge. This creates an almost fairy tale-like register that gives the film an allegorical feel and sets the tone for a story that prioritises the perspective of the child.

1969 was also the year in which another classic English film, Withnail & I, was set. Withnail was very much about the end of the sixties and it looked back on that decade as a closed chapter. As drug dealer Danny remarks, “They’re selling Beatles wigs in Woolworths, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over.” The Falling feels much more like a film that is looking forward to the seventies and it seems to recognise the genuinely Scarfolk-inflected character of that decade. Indeed, Scarfolk derives much of its humour from staying quite faithful to some of the more bizarre elements of 1970s culture. It was a decade when a slew of magazines and TV programmes sought to popularise the occult and supernatural, and when it seemed perfectly natural for children’s TV and literature to be dominated by themes of folk horror.

The Falling picks up this thread in the figure of Lydia’s brother, Kenneth. He performs magick (“with a ‘k'”) spells and talks about John Michell and ley lines. None of this seems to manifest itself in terms of great personal power, though. He still lives at home with his mother and seems to expend much of his energy in working his way through Lydia’s school friends (and then Lydia herself) in a sordid, priapic odyssey. Like most people, he seems to latch on to occult ideas as a way of boosting his image, of appearing more exciting than he really is.

He stands in contrast to his sister. Lydia is shown to have an intense, semi-sexualised relationship with her best friend, Abbie. When Abbie dies unexpectedly after a series of fainting fits, Lydia spontaneously begins to have fainting fits accompanied with strangely ritualistic gestures. Soon, this bizarre behavior spreads throughout the school in a peculiarly passive sort of instinctive rebellion, one which seems connected to the girls’ growing awareness of their incipient sexual power. Menarche in the UK, perhaps?

The fainting epidemic seems to take on a sort of cultish character as it becomes a battle of wills between Lydia and the school’s headmistress. The crux of the matter revolves around whether this is a genuine phenomenon as Lydia insists, or just girls acting up as the headmistress believes.

So, whereas Kenneth is interested in studying a codified, systemic sort of magick, his sister is manifesting a purely instinctual form of sorcery, one based on a trance-like, almost shamanic loss of consciousness, part St. Vitus Dance, part mass hysteria. Some have referred to such female sorcery as muliebral magic and it’s no coincidence that the moon looms large throughout The Falling.

As the epidemic spreads throughout the school even one of the teachers starts to suffer from fainting fits. The fact that she is close to the school girls in age is certainly relevant to her becoming susceptible to this shared phenomenon. Interestingly enough, one of the girls in Lydia’s circle of friends, Titch, is Indian and she is immune to the spread of fainting. It’s a curious thing for the filmmaker to do because it would seem to suggest that she is excluded from their shared “hysteria” due to her different background. Whereas the teacher who does succumb to the fainting epidemic is sufficiently similar to the girls that she cannot help but participate in it. Almost as though their racial heritage is essential to their shared psychic reality. Now, such a reading would surely not be one that was intended by the filmmaker, but it is a curious detail to include. Titch is the only non-white character in the film so what we see is an all-English (so, all-white) cast with a single non-white character who is shown not to belong in a significant sense. Again, it can hardly be the case that the filmmaker intended for it to appear in this way but it does point to the peculiarly schizophrenic character of those who are interested in this sort of hauntological, folk horror art. On the one hand, they like to look back to a particular time in English history that can now seem naïve or innocent; on the other, they like to apply a politically deconstructive critique to such notions of Englishness. It’s the nostalgia that dare not speak its name.

The film concludes with a revelation about one of the characters that seems out of place with what has gone before. It does nothing to add to the power or atmosphere of this strange and affecting film but then neither does it detract much either.

The Falling is a highly ambiguous film. Many reviews have chosen to focus on the sense of repression that is evident in a single sex school from that time period. This angle seems to me to be very much a part of the general deconstructivist tendency just mentioned, and it’s an aspect of the film that doesn’t interest me much. The strength of this film lies in the fact that it can be subjected to numerous competing readings, all of which are plausible. As an allegorical tale its power lies in its autonomy, in its ability to depict a world of hidden meanings but without disclosing exactly what those meanings are. It is destined to wax in influence in the coming years.

 

 

Related

  • The Father

  • Galaxy Quest:
    From Cargo Cult to Cosplay

  • A Clockwork Orange

  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

  • Fahrenheit 451

  • The Hunt

  • Adam Curtis’ Can’t Get You Out of My Head

  • American History X 

Tags

Albion's Hidden NuminaChristopher Pankhursthautologymovie reviewsthe occult

Previous

« Robert Stark Interviews F. Roger Devlin on Sexual Utopia in Power

Next

Atticus in Bizarro World:
Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman »

3 comments

  1. The Faustian says:
    July 23, 2015 at 3:37 pm

    …1970s culture. It was a decade when a slew of magazines and TV programmes sought to popularize the occult and supernatural, and when it seemed perfectly natural for children’s TV..

    Let me see, I recall the TV series Tarot, The Tomorrow People, Timeslip, Children of The Stones, Sky and others…

    By the way I see the new Bond film Spectre or is that Specter..,,soon to be released how about a review?

  2. rhondda says:
    July 24, 2015 at 2:04 pm

    So you have intrigued me enough to make an effort to see this movie. I will say no more.

  3. David Halevi says:
    August 1, 2015 at 2:04 pm

    Titch, is Indian and she is immune to the spread of fainting. It’s a curious thing for the filmmaker to do because it would seem to suggest that she is excluded from their shared “hysteria” due to her different background.

    Much like the Sikhs in “The Changes”.

Comments are closed.

If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.

Note on comments privacy & moderation

Your email is never published nor shared.

Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.

Recent posts
  • Fundraiser Update, this Weekend’s Livestreams, & A New Way to Support Counter-Currents

    Greg Johnson

    3

  • Two Nationalisms

    Nicholas R. Jeelvy

    31

  • A Robertson Roundup: 
    Remembering Wilmot Robertson
    (April 16, 1915 – July 8, 2005)

    Margot Metroland

    14

  • Remembering Dominique Venner
    (April 16, 1935 – May 21, 2013)

    Greg Johnson

    10

  • I’m Not a Racist, But. . .

    Jim Goad

    42

  • The Father

    Steven Clark

    5

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 335
    Dark Enlightenment

    Counter-Currents Radio

    9

  • Are We Ready For “White Boy Summer”?

    Robert Hampton

    30

  • Can the Libertarian Party Become a Popular Vanguard?

    Beau Albrecht

    17

  • Every Phoenix Needs Its Ashes

    Mark Gullick

    24

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 334
    Greg Johnson, Millennial Woes, & Fróði Midjord

    Counter-Currents Radio

    2

  • If I Were Black, I’d Vote Democrat

    Spencer J. Quinn

    14

  • The Silence of the Scam:
    The Killing of Dr. Lesslie

    Stephen Paul Foster

    6

  • Proud of Being Guilty:
    Fighting the Stigma of Lawfare in Sweden & Winning

    HMF Medaljen

    6

  • The Halifax Grooming Gang Survivor

    Morris van de Camp

    22

  • Get on the Right Side of the Paywall

    Greg Johnson

    12

  • The Worst Week Yet:
    April 4-10, 2021

    Jim Goad

    13

  • Forthcoming from Counter-Currents:
    Jonathan Bowden’s Reactionary Modernism

    Jonathan Bowden

  • Remembering Prince Philip

    Nicholas R. Jeelvy

    16

  • Remembering Jonathan Bowden
    (April 12, 1962–March 29, 2012)

    Greg Johnson

    7

  • Today’s Livestream:
    Ask Counter-Currents with Greg Johnson, Millennial Woes, & Frodi Midjord

    Counter-Currents Radio

  • Paywall Launch, Monday, April 12th

    Greg Johnson

    10

  • Galaxy Quest:
    From Cargo Cult to Cosplay

    James J. O'Meara

    13

  • Biden to Whites: Drop Dead!

    Spencer J. Quinn

    22

  • Politicians Didn’t Invent Racial Divisions

    Robert Hampton

    7

  • London: No City for White Men

    Jim Goad

    51

  • Republicans Should Stop Pandering to Blacks

    Lipton Matthews

    18

  • Quotations From Chairman Rabble
    Kenneth Roberts: A Patriotic Curmudgeon

    Steven Clark

    6

  • Remembering Emil Cioran
    (April 8, 1911–June 20, 1995)

    Guillaume Durocher

    5

  • An Interview with Béla Incze:
    The Man Who Destroyed a BLM Statue

    Béla Incze

    15

  • Heidegger’s History of Metaphysics, Part Six:
    G. W. Leibniz’s Will-to-Power

    Collin Cleary

    12

  • The Importance of Survival Skills

    Marcus Devonshire

    22

  • The Oslo Incident

    Greg Johnson

    2

  • Mihai Eminescu:
    Romania’s Morning Star

    Amory Stern

    1

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World & Me

    Beau Albrecht

    21

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 333
    Greg Johnson, Millennial Woes, & Fróði Midjord

    Counter-Currents Radio

    5

  • The Worst Week Yet:
    March 28-April 3, 2021

    Jim Goad

    18

  • Murder Maps:
    Agatha Christie’s Insular Imperialism

    Kathryn S.

    29

  • A Clockwork Orange

    Trevor Lynch

    21

  • Easter Livestream:
    Ask Counter-Currents with Greg Johnson, Millennial Woes, & Frodi Midjord

    Greg Johnson

    1

  • Our Big, Beautiful Wall

    Greg Johnson

    4

  • Agrarian Populism & Cargo Cult Fascism

    Nicholas R. Jeelvy

    9

  • One Carjacking Embodies the New America

    Robert Hampton

    38

  • The de la Poer Madness:
    Before and After Lovecraft’s “Rats in the Walls”

    James J. O'Meara

    9

  • Requiem for a Jigger

    Jim Goad

    39

  • The Promise & the Reality of Globalization 

    Algis Avižienis

    17

  • When They Destroy Memorials, We Raise Our Own to the Fallen

    Hawkwood

    8

  • The Counter-Currents Newsletter, March 2021

    Greg Johnson

    3

  • Making Lions out of Lambs:
    A Response to Max Morton of American Greatness

    Spencer J. Quinn

    9

  • How the Coronavirus Took Over the World

    Veiko Hessler

    13

Recent comments
  • Thank u Millennial Woes for saying what is OBVIOUS, yet, u r (as far as I know) the only one that...
  • If a Bulgarian read this article, he would just say, that there are no Macedonians, but they are...
  • Nice to see a shout-out to the brave, high IQ men who took a desert on the Western Slope of the...
  • There´s nothing better that the Steppe. Limitless, borderless, forever free. With Eternal Blue Sky (...
  • Will that turn the Danes into Germans? Well, the greatest German military commander of the 19th...
Editor-in-Chief
Greg Johnson
Our titles
  • White Identity Politics
  • Here’s the Thing
  • Trevor Lynch: Part Four of the Trilogy
  • Graduate School with Heidegger
  • It’s Okay to Be White
  • Imperium
  • The Enemy of Europe
  • The World in Flames
  • The White Nationalist Manifesto
  • From Plato to Postmodernism
  • The Gizmo
  • Return of the Son of Trevor Lynch’s CENSORED Guide to the Movies
  • Toward a New Nationalism
  • The Smut Book
  • The Alternative Right
  • My Nationalist Pony
  • Dark Right: Batman Viewed From the Right
  • The Philatelist
  • Novel Folklore
  • Confessions of an Anti-Feminist
  • East and West
  • Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Will Come
  • White Like You
  • The Homo and the Negro, Second Edition
  • Numinous Machines
  • Venus and Her Thugs
  • Cynosura
  • North American New Right, vol. 2
  • You Asked For It
  • More Artists of the Right
  • Extremists: Studies in Metapolitics
  • Rising
  • The Importance of James Bond
  • In Defense of Prejudice
  • Confessions of a Reluctant Hater (2nd ed.)
  • The Hypocrisies of Heaven
  • Waking Up from the American Dream
  • Green Nazis in Space!
  • Truth, Justice, and a Nice White Country
  • Heidegger in Chicago
  • The End of an Era
  • Sexual Utopia in Power
  • What is a Rune? & Other Essays
  • Son of Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • The Lightning & the Sun
  • The Eldritch Evola
  • Western Civilization Bites Back
  • New Right vs. Old Right
  • Lost Violent Souls
  • Journey Late at Night: Poems and Translations
  • The Non-Hindu Indians & Indian Unity
  • Baader Meinhof ceramic pistol, Charles Kraaft 2013
  • Pulp Fascism
  • The Lost Philosopher, Second Expanded Edition
  • Trevor Lynch’s A White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • And Time Rolls On
  • The Homo & the Negro
  • Artists of the Right
  • North American New Right, Vol. 1
  • Some Thoughts on Hitler
  • Tikkun Olam and Other Poems
  • Under the Nihil
  • Summoning the Gods
  • Hold Back This Day
  • The Columbine Pilgrim
  • Taking Our Own Side
  • Toward the White Republic
  • Reuben
  • The Node
  • The New Austerities
  • Morning Crafts
  • The Passing of a Profit & Other Forgotten Stories
  • Gold in the Furnace
  • Defiance
Distributed Titles
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
Copyright © 2021 Counter-Currents Publishing, Ltd. Albion’s Hidden Numina
The Falling

Paywall Access





Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password.