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4 September 2019 10:09Interesting observation about Arcadia (2017): it doesn't feature the military.
The folk horror generation were born under the shadow of war.
The genre starts from Quatermass II in 1955, with from the children of World War II, and going through the period of the cold war to its peak in the 70s.
The military is inextricably linked with ideas about nation, and as much folk horror has a political edge, writers returned constantly to fear of the bomb.
Military bases are in rural locations: the land has always been our nourishment and survival, a pastoral vision of plenty - perverted as the place from which we will launch our nuclear war on humanity, survival at all costs, a war that will not cease. Tolkien - influenced by World War 1 - published the Lord of the Rings in {date}, and though he's not seen as part of this trend, the Scouring of the Shire tells of his key current: the destruction of the countryside to make way for industry and war.
In Penda's Fen (1974) and the Wall (not really claimed as folk horror), we see the military as associated with the establishment - quite literally with a patriarchy, a generation of fathers who fought and fell and whose influence the young cannot escape but fight against as all young men do.
Folk horror Doctor Who episodes cluster in the UNIT years, where the English rural and the restless spirits of the land are juxtaposed with industrial works, steel works, coal works, the presence of an army group the Doctor now works for, and the character of the Brigadier. Folk horror of the past returns repeatedly to the Civil War, and to the hypnotic terror of brother set against brother and the land laid waste which, I think, appealed to the bomb generation intimately.
Arcadia treads familiar roads when reflecting on the land: asocialist history, our relationship with animals and the environment, and of course, the wordless Pagan strangeness of our folk customs. It notably does not feature the military. Its brief use of civil war footage is used to support a segment about state control over the populace at the service of the wealthy. It also doesn't foreground the church. These things would, I think, have been unthinkable in any true period folk horror. They're the bread and butter politics of the era. How far things have changed, that they would be absent in this; and how necessary it is that our political folk horror and readings of the land must update and change as the struggles over the land do.
The folk horror generation were born under the shadow of war.
The genre starts from Quatermass II in 1955, with from the children of World War II, and going through the period of the cold war to its peak in the 70s.
The military is inextricably linked with ideas about nation, and as much folk horror has a political edge, writers returned constantly to fear of the bomb.
Military bases are in rural locations: the land has always been our nourishment and survival, a pastoral vision of plenty - perverted as the place from which we will launch our nuclear war on humanity, survival at all costs, a war that will not cease. Tolkien - influenced by World War 1 - published the Lord of the Rings in {date}, and though he's not seen as part of this trend, the Scouring of the Shire tells of his key current: the destruction of the countryside to make way for industry and war.
In Penda's Fen (1974) and the Wall (not really claimed as folk horror), we see the military as associated with the establishment - quite literally with a patriarchy, a generation of fathers who fought and fell and whose influence the young cannot escape but fight against as all young men do.
Folk horror Doctor Who episodes cluster in the UNIT years, where the English rural and the restless spirits of the land are juxtaposed with industrial works, steel works, coal works, the presence of an army group the Doctor now works for, and the character of the Brigadier. Folk horror of the past returns repeatedly to the Civil War, and to the hypnotic terror of brother set against brother and the land laid waste which, I think, appealed to the bomb generation intimately.
Arcadia treads familiar roads when reflecting on the land: asocialist history, our relationship with animals and the environment, and of course, the wordless Pagan strangeness of our folk customs. It notably does not feature the military. Its brief use of civil war footage is used to support a segment about state control over the populace at the service of the wealthy. It also doesn't foreground the church. These things would, I think, have been unthinkable in any true period folk horror. They're the bread and butter politics of the era. How far things have changed, that they would be absent in this; and how necessary it is that our political folk horror and readings of the land must update and change as the struggles over the land do.
