Let's talk about The VVitch

[Isis]

Finally got to watch this as it popped up on UK Netflix. I've thought about it a lot since I saw it two days ago and I've talked about it with friends as well as doing some online reading.

The one thing I was wondering about was what happened to the two (extremely awful demon) children in the end. But if we take the concept of witches murdering children in order to fly on their broomsticks then we can extrapolate that 'missing children (who were completely awful)' ... = lots of levitating witches.

So now that I have made sense of that piece of the puzzle I feel like I can stop obsessing about the film and just admire it. 

 

[Theda Baratheon]

On 09/04/2018 at 0:13 PM, Isis said:

Finally got to watch this as it popped up on UK Netflix. I've thought about it a lot since I saw it two days ago and I've talked about it with friends as well as doing some online reading.

The one thing I was wondering about was what happened to the two (extremely awful demon) children in the end. But if we take the concept of witches murdering children in order to fly on their broomsticks then we can extrapolate that 'missing children (who were completely awful)' ... = lots of levitating witches.

So now that I have made sense of that piece of the puzzle I feel like I can stop obsessing about the film and just admire it. 

 

I still find myself thinking about it every now and again! It really is an astonishing little film for a number of reasons. Those children really were awful lol. 

[Astromech]

I watched this last night after Isis mentioned it in another thread. It was quite good in a bizarrely fascinating way. Watching the special features on the dvd gave some interesting insights into Robert Eggers thought process when writing and directing the film. One interesting aspect was him mentioning continental vs. colonial ideas of witchcraft, which I never thought of distinguishing between. An example is the importance of the hare in continental witchcraft.

Oh, and Anya Taylor-Joy sounds so much like Emma Stone.

[Isis]

The more I think about this film, the cleverer I think it is. At first I couldn't decide whether I wanted it to be more or less ambiguous/explicit. I do really enjoy films that are ambiguous and leave their interpretation very open. So in explicitly showing a witch/witches I wasn't sure if this went too far the other way. But actually I think it still leaves enough uncertainty and questions for it to be considered complex.

Funny you should mention the hare, because I just read a book where a character changes into a hare and is described as 'the stitcher of paths/worlds' (I forget which). Also, I seem to recall that in Graham Joyce's Limits of Enchantment a female character changed into a hare. So I was kind of primed to accept a hare as a female shape-changer.

I would guess that the two children, at all the times when they were being little demons, had actually been primed to misbehave. But this is very cleverly done because when any little kids play up (especially when they are in it together and seem to make each other worse), you can actually be thinking: YOU LITTLE DEMONS! Like, it is perfectly reasonable that their behaviour is just them being naughty, plus being unsettled because of the grief/uncertainty in their family. And the bit where the father questions whether they are play-acting - you think, yeah, maybe they are just messing about and pretending that they forgot how to pray... but you're never totally sure. In hindsight, they probably were 'bewitched'. But it could equally be them just being naughty kids. I LOVE THIS.

 

[Theda Baratheon]

One of my favourite parts of the film is that it is pretty ambiguous. There's so many different ways to analyse it and theories you can come up with to explin what happens. You could say the witches never exist & it's all the fevered imagination of the family.

Or you could say the witches DO exist and that they're either irredeemably evil or they're not. They either preyed upon an innocent poor family or because the family was so fractured and vicious to itself that it left itself weak enough to be taken advantage of by a natural force like the forest and the creatures within.

[Astromech]

I felt the hare was actually creepier than Black Philip, but was unaware of any continental witchcraft association it had. I'll have to read up on the differences between continental and colonial witchcraft to familiarize myself with them.

Thomasin definitely was pushed towards becoming a witch by her family rather than pulled by the witches. Her family treated her worse and worse due to their superstitions and fears. Seeing that progression from Thomasin's pov was the strongest aspect of the film, imo. I think the only "good" character was Caleb. The twins were little shits.

Robert Eggers specifically addressed the openness of interpretation in the special features, saying how he was in favor it. Anya Taylor-Joy was actually surprised when someone felt Thomasin was a witch all along.

[Theda Baratheon]

14 minutes ago, Astromech said:

I felt the hare was actually creepier than Black Philip, but was unaware of any continental witchcraft association it had. I'll have to read up on the differences between continental and colonial witchcraft to familiarize myself with them.

Thomasin definitely was pushed towards becoming a witch by her family rather than pulled by the witches. Her family treated her worse and worse due to their superstitions and fears. Seeing that progression from Thomasin's pov was the strongest aspect of the film, imo. I think the only "good" character was Caleb. The twins were little shits.

Robert Eggers specifically addressed the openness of interpretation in the special features, saying how he was in favor it. Anya Taylor-Joy was actually surprised when someone felt Thomasin was a witch all along.

I'd argue that in a way even Caleb kind of sexually objectified his sister even though he can't be seen as a terrible person as he's just a young boy in an incredibly strict household - I still found the couple of shots where he's checking her out to be hinting at Thomasin being driven to become a witch because even her young brother is unintentionally and subconsciously projecting his own issues onto her. 

[Astromech]

38 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I'd argue that in a way even Caleb kind of sexually objectified his sister even though he can't be seen as a terrible person as he's just a young boy in an incredibly strict household - I still found the couple of shots where he's checking her out to be hinting at Thomasin being driven to become a witch because even her young brother is unintentionally and subconsciously projecting his own issues onto her. 

Possibly, but I never saw those scenes as malicious or evil on Caleb's part. Rather an awareness of Thomasin's growing into womanhood and a normal response of a boy his age. Granted it's his sister, making it unpleasant for the viewer. The witch also plays on Caleb's budding curiosity, when she "seduces" him. The witch is awfully skilled at preying on each family member's weakness.

I find Thomasin's maturing into womanhood and the stifling of such by her puritan family leading to her eventual "liberation", the symbolic casting off of her clothing, at the end quite interesting. 

[Theda Baratheon]

9 minutes ago, Astromech said:

Possibly, but I never saw those scenes as malicious or evil on Caleb's part. Rather an awareness of Thomasin's growing into womanhood and a normal response of a boy his age. Granted it's his sister, making it unpleasant for the viewer. The witch also plays on Caleb's budding curiosity, when she "seduces" him. The witch is awfully skilled at preying on each family member's weakness.

I find Thomasin's maturing into womanhood and the stifling of such by her puritan family leading to her eventual "liberation", the symbolic casting off of her clothing, at the end quite interesting. 

Oh I don't think he's a bad kid or malicious/ evil in any way and think it's just another example of the stifling puritanical family being the ones who brought this on themselves in a way. 

Yeah I actually view the ending as a (twisted) happy one for Thomasin.

[Astromech]

17 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Oh I don't think he's a bad kid or malicious/ evil in any way and think it's just another example of the stifling puritanical family being the ones who brought this on themselves in a way. 

Yeah I actually view the ending as a (twisted) happy one for Thomasin.

Perhaps I should have stated that I still see him as good in spite of those actions.

The film could be interpreted as one big metaphor for Thomasin's liberation.

[Theda Baratheon]

27 minutes ago, Astromech said:

Perhaps I should have stated that I still see him as good in spite of those actions.

The film could be interpreted as one big metaphor for Thomasin's liberation.

I guess so I just think the film was trying to portray no one as truly good. 

[Astromech]

That's possible.

[Theda Baratheon]

2 hours ago, Astromech said:

That's possible.

Then again, you're reading of it it just as valid as mine and I shouldn't state my view of it as fact lol. Like I said, part of why I love the film is because so many different people have different views about it. 

[The BlackBear]

I've only seen this film once a while back so may well give it a rewatch. I liked it a lot. The brutal cuts that came out of nowhere scared the shit out of me every time. The whole film had eerieness I haven't seen for a long time.

My reading of it is fairly muddled, I think the witches are real, but are just outcasts from society, they're not magical. And the more hysterical aspects are caused by the ergot. My main problem with reading the end as good is that Thomasin views it as evil, regardless of whether it is, she thinks she's selling her soul.

[Theda Baratheon]

On 4/19/2018 at 2:20 PM, The BlackBear said:

I've only seen this film once a while back so may well give it a rewatch. I liked it a lot. The brutal cuts that came out of nowhere scared the shit out of me every time. The whole film had eerieness I haven't seen for a long time.

My reading of it is fairly muddled, I think the witches are real, but are just outcasts from society, they're not magical. And the more hysterical aspects are caused by the ergot. My main problem with reading the end as good is that Thomasin views it as evil, regardless of whether it is, she thinks she's selling her soul.

I don't know if she does think it's evil really. Especially with her reaction at the very end. 

This really is one of the best examples of a folklore film. I really wish there were more out there.