In the 1960s, a youngish genius called Alan Garner read a chapter of the Welsh epic Mabinogion and idly wondered what would happen if that same mythical story were to be repeated in the modern era. As he mused, an owl's wing brushed his face and one of the finest pieces of British literature was born; I'm speaking, of course, of The Owl Service. A book so beautiful that it hurts; a story about unrequited love and that peculiarly teenage moment when you know that your heart will never stop breaking. Oh, and a vengeful supernatural force quite unlike anything else you've ever read about. A book ostensibly for children, which finished on one of the most ambiguous notes possible, leaving its audience to wonder long afterwards.
Granada television bought the rights around 1968. Clearly, this was going to fuck up on an astonishing scale. I mean, Granada? The Coronation Street people? Oh yeah, lots of social realism, low budget kitchen sink and all that. But not The Owl Service, surely.
My goddess. They made something alright. Something unique.
Casting an eye over modern day opinion, many seem puzzled or bored by the results; I condemn those reviewers without ever meeting them or formulating a coherent response because The Owl Service is as wonderful and strange on screen as it was on paper. Or ebook. (Fuck you, Jonathan Franzen. Because, that's why.)
How best to describe it, without ruining it? I can't, so we'll be very short on detail tonight. It's about three young people, somewhere around their late teens. Two are very definitely 'county', i.e. posh. More than somewhat laden down with the finer things. The third is the angry young son of the housekeeper. Down in the garden, there's a standing stone. In the poolroom, there's something hidden away behind the wall. Up there in the attic, there's something that sounds just like birds, but it isn't. Even though it is. And that's all you're getting on the plot details. This is a glimpse of the other worlds that lie hidden away in plain sight, in the dark places, in the woods or in the anger of a mother.
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| Opening credits; oppressive sense of foreboding not pictured |
Idiots often boring ramble on the theme that you wouldn't get away with that today! Largely, this refers to horrific racism, or jokes about domestic violence, and the implication is that the speaker quite definitely wishes that they could get away with it today. On this occasion, they'd have a valid point, because there's no way anyone would commission this for family viewing.
Why? Easy. It's filthy. The key theme is one of sexual frustration, adolescence, jealousy and inexplicable heartbreak; fair play, but this is largely signposted by having Gillian Hills writhe around in her underwear. All very aesthetically pleasing (and before you start, she's clearly about 25) but I can imagine it causing more nightmares than anything else; this isn't an easy view of sexuality. Sure, the first episode is Hills in bed with just a shirt on, moaning quite a lot, but look what happens next; her stepbrother innocently checks in on her and she slashes at his face with her nails, quite instinctively and unexpectedly, leaving his face bloody.
There are a lot of scratched faces, a lot of fighting and staring. And a lot of people in swimwear, looking bloody cold. This is a realistic and troubling sexuality, all blood and sweat and crying, along with the flower petals and laughter. Dark and light, flowers and owls.
In narrative terms, its closest relative could be that other late 1960s Welsh fantasy, The Prisoner. Similarly enigmatic, especially in its final moments, we are also treated to some wonderfully avant-garde moments worthy of McGoohan's masterpiece. There's an astonishing scene of confrontation; a sunbathing Hills (yeah, swimwear again, I know, I know) argues with her fellow 'inmates' - suddenly, a weird poltergeist type effect kicks in, but not in any way you'd expect. The camera work disintegrates, the continuity of editing is deliberately ruined, the scene becomes purposefully impossible to follow for a moment. It's as if all that tension reached out and broke the process of filming, extended into the real world for a moment.
If you believe some of the stories from the set, that's exactly what did happen. I'll leave those up to you to discover, as I did, long ago; hugely inexplicable coincidences, wild owls arriving when owls were needed on set, mental problems amongst some crew, euphoria amongst others. Owls and flowers, see? The truth has become a little obscured over the intervening years, with some trying to work the tragic 1978 murder of actor Michael Holden into the pattern. Perhaps, if this story has a moral, it is that we must be careful of morals, of the patterns we see in things.
There's a power in this story in all it's forms (I wanted to write manifestations there), but that's what the book and series are about, the power of stories, the essential danger in misinterpretation. The pain of being the owl that is compelled to go hunting, when all it wants is the softness of the meadowsweet flowers.
Not funny this week, like I said. I suppose you could say that this story means quite a lot to me; I first read it at the age of 12, alone in a school library, like a billion other kids. That's powerful magic.
Next time: the 1980s, exploding comedy heads, big red framed glasses, poor American accents and the word 'prat' being seen as an acceptable punchline. Jokes and everything, promise.
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