The Owl Service

Be warned that Alan Garner doesn't go in for conventional story-telling. This is really an experimental work of the type sometimes seen (fortunately very rarely) in 60's/70's films and which I suppose has its origins in surrealism. Real film student stuff. Badly (over) acted - or perhaps improvised - mostly by a cast which is too old for the roles they're playing. They look to be late teens/early twenties when they're supposed to be about 15 so their behaviour seems ludicrously and unbelievably adolescent given their evident real ages. Badly directed and edited - if it was directed at all. I'm quite serious about this. It looks as if the 'director' just let the cast do what they wanted without any guidance and the result is a complete mess. The style of filming also seems experimental. Poorly planned, uninterestingly framed, unmemorable except for the wrong reasons. Cold, badly lit, unatmospheric and alienating. If you want to learn what not to do and why most films and TV are not like this it may be worth watching. Disgracefully padded out. Might have worked at 1 x 30 minute like one of those M.R.James adaptations the BBC did in the early 70's - with a better director and much better source material. Excruciating punishment at 8 x 30 mins. I forced myself to watch the whole thing having paid for it on disc but could only bear to do so by spreading it over a week. The story (meaning the original Welsh myth) is simply too thin, bizarre and uninteresting to be stretched to this length.