"Merlin" starring Sam Neill, Rudger Hauer, Martin Short...

[Ed Augusts]

A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT "MERLIN", THE MOVIE

This adventurous, sumptuous, at times tedious, disjointed, ill-
conceived attempt-at-a- feature movie, shows, more than anything, how
difficult it is to take a MINI-SERIES, in this case a 6-parter, and
turn it into a seamless, well-paced, gripping, enjoyable movie. You
almost have to believe, this faulty flick would have run better and
made more money as, say, 2 or 3 separate films, much like the "Lord of
the Rings" trilogy. ...or would it have? The genius of Tolkien is
lacking here in this semi-compendium of bastardized bits of
'Arthurian' lore. I say 'Arthurian' because King Arthur is only one of
many passing characters in this saga. This film is about exactly what
it says it's about: MERLIN. If you are looking for other 'Arthurian'
characters in all their rightful places of glory, beware!

This film looks intently at that very nearly off-the-map, Dark Ages
period of chivalrous (mostly Norman) legends that purport to tell of
the ages between the time the Roman legions left Britain and the
Norman Conquest. This film is engineered by the genius of an ENTIRELY
Christian viewpoint, very likely the Norman / French Catholic
viewpoint, as you can see in the fact the queen of paganism and magic,
Queen Mab, a down-home English witch if there ever was one, is
portrayed as such an selfish, murderous, shrewish and uncaring
creature. craving only the prolongation of her own unfitting survival.
Only someone steeped in the 'new religion', who believes, as this film
mentions, that Joseph of Aramathea arrived direct from the Holy Land
in England bearing the chalice from the Last Supper, would envision
the Queen of the Old Ways as does this ugly portrayal. She lords it
over the realm of faery, the sprites and fairies that cluster and
flutter like rabid moths around her dark part of the world...not a
place of green groves, like the places where real pagans congregate,
but gray and hidden cavern-castles. Even the flittering little fairies
have no beauty here. (SEE the Book I published: "Fairies at Work and
at Play" by Geoffrey Hodson, for a GOOD, very POSITIVE look at
fairies, gnomes, mannikens, sylphs, brownies, etc., here it is,
scroll down: http://stores.lulu.com/edaugusts )

The legends of ancient Britain that selectively went into these
Arthurian tales were concocted from an anti-Pagan, anti-native-
traditions perspective which, because of its one-sidedness and hatred
of religious diversity, I found distasteful and somewhat difficult to
enjoy. The Christian viewpoint of Arthurian legend as portrayed in
"Merlin" does have its adherents. I know an 18 year old girl who makes
all due observances to the Christian God and Holy Mother, and attends
church at least once a week; and she joyously watched "Merlin's" anti-
Pagan movie-myth magic literally dozens of times, craning her neck in
pleasure for any and every half-hidden reference to Jesus and God and
the Church. For her and her parents -- this is a wonderful movie,
because the evil pagan magic-making forces eventually lose...

But just to reiterate -- I am on the side of the Pagans in this epic,
and I can't believe that if they had a "Queen" that she would be so
wicked and selfish as Queen Mab. Powerful ancient religions like
Druidism that erected megaliths across Britain back in the days when
the Great Pyramids were being built in Egypt, were not managed by
hateful, selfish mother-killers like Queen Mab. I await tales of the
TRUE ancient religion and shrug off stories like this one more easily
than I could a series of half-baked but inoffensive 1930's Hobbit
tales. For Tolkein is truly wise. His era precedes the Christian one
by several thousand centuries, so he didn't have to raise religions up
against each other in quite the same way as "Merlin" does.

I am offended to some degree by "Merlin" for the way it 'deep sixes'
the pre-Christian civilization and beliefs of ancient Britain. That's
why I think this whole thing was originally a Norman (French,
Continental) import. It spoke of a pagan England that must have
terrified the Normans, despite their conquest. Imagine, if you would,
a film that celebrated Constantine or some other PRO-Christian Roman
Emperor by turning all the diversity of the gods, goddesses and
temples of pre-Christian Rome into vulgar, corrupt, ugly, murderous
institutions that deserved to be wiped-out. That is the kind of movie
that "Merlin" is, a movie which insinuates contempt onto both paganism
and magic, and on a deep level, starting by giving us rather ugly,
uncolorful fairies, and never getting better after that 'downer'.

Here's some "plot" and "characters" without giving too much away:

Merlin -- originally a 'thought' inside a red 'crystal' belonging to
Queen Mab; Merlin had no father, but an earthly mother who died in
childbirth. Ambrosia, caught between the old Pagan ways of Queen Mab
and the new ways of Christianity, is Merlin's nursemaid.
Insofar as her new Christianity makes her bold, she offends Queen Mab,
who needs her to raise Merlin, but eventually 'dispatches' her. THE
YOUNG MERLIN IS A GEM... But unfortunately Sam Neill, the actor who
plays Merlin for 2-1/2+ hours, gets TIRESOME;. (Is it that one, near-
continuous, wan smile with the lip twisted just a little bit?)

Queen Mab -- terrible voice! -- what an awful experience just to have
to listen to Queen Mab all during this movie! --- Is that really
MIRANDA RICHARDSON's voice? --- She teaches Merlin to become the most
powerful wizard in the world, so as to lead mortals back to Queen Mab
and the Old Ways; "It is his destiny", we are told. She teaches him
through Frick (Martin Short, who gives a wonderful performance
throughout, with terrific facial and costume changes, impersonating a
Mikado at one moment and a boatman the next).

We get a streaming sequence of kings... starting with King Constant
who is played by no less than JOHN GIELGUD. Unfortunately his part is
about 30 seconds long... before he gets beheaded... RUTGER HAUER as
the evil King Vortigan, who keeps building a TOWER which keeps falling
down ... "his land is cursed! " His English is still a bit "off".
You get the feeling he was originally a Prince of Germany or
something... Well, somebody doesn't like him, we're not sure quite
who... probably the Lady of the Lake, judging by how he dies... of
course, the Sword Excalibur plays its part... but remember, the sword
came from the Lady of the Lake. EXCALIBUR... yes, given to Merlin by
the Lady of (fabulous with her necklace of little fish trooping
around and around her neck...) This magical sword can only be used by
a GOOD man, in a GOOD cause!

Speaking of The Lady of the Lake -- "I got your message, sister!" She
ridiculously tells Mab... who thinks up lines like that? Then, later,
tells Merlin, as a youth, that Queen Mab let Merlin's mother die. She
also helps him across the waters, being a goddess of the water... and
warns him that he is too quick to judge the good or evil nature of
England's kings, something that will hurt him several times later,
when she says: "Good King, Bad King -- you judge too easily, Merlin!"
I don't see what actress played the Lady of the Lake...

NOTES about the rather interesting MAGICAL dimension at work here: We
are told there are three classes of magic. First & lowest is "wizard
by incantation." i.e., "Abracadabra!" 2nd stage wizards are "hand
wizards." whose magic is performed by gestures of the hands and
fingers. Supreme exponents are wizards of "pure thought" -- third &
highest -- who need no words or gestures but do magic by their will
alone...

"The secret ways of other worlds are beneath the surface and behind
mirrors. "

Merlin, armed with the "Sword of the Just," appoaches Uthor in the
fight against Vortigan.

This is the start of Merlin's political campaigning to put the best
king possible on the throne. Unfortunately, he isn't very good at it,
perhaps because he has an earthly mother and--for a father? Nothing
but a red crystal in the hands of evil Queen Mab.

The Lady Nimue, Lord Ardente's Daughter... wonderfully played
throughout;; by ISABELLA ROSELLINI, disfigured by Queen Mab via the
hot breath of a fire-breathing dragon... Merlin could save her life
but not all of her skin... ouch! When they first met, was a charming
scene... then, later that same day, Nimue was trapped in a bog, Merlin
saved her by making a branch grow long enough to reach her so he could
pull her out.

Speaking of "making a branch grow"... I see all kinds of links between
symbolism in this movie and the Waite-Rider Tarot deck, such as
branches coming to life and growing, which is very reminiscent of the
flowering suit of wands in the Tarot deck, and other touches....

"Magic has no power over the human heart!" Another great line.

MORGAN Le FEY, little girl with a strange, gawky, misshapen face...
"Twicks" she calls 'tricks'. Martin Short's Frick character gets to
cavort and leap around to impress this little girl, starting a life-
long friendship.

Merlin makes a big mistake / does a very EVIL thing --- in his desire
to have a GOOD KING, he DISGUISES obsessed rogue KING UTHOR. THROUGH
MAGIC, so that Cornwall's wife thinks HE is her husband... yes,
sleeping with a married lady to create a baby -- and Merlin agrees to
this, even as Uthor is having Cornwall killed -- he impregnates his
bride! Merlin WANTS to use this horrible piece of deception, ie..,
rape, to conceive Arthur, though with a father like that, Arthur can
in no wise be very lucky or nearly perfect.. but "the end justifies
the means", Merlin thinks... Merlin is not as bright as people think
he is... nor quite so moral.. Frick places a stone in the baby's
crib. ..significance of this is not told.. ARTHUR IS BORN....LUTHOR
FOOLS Merlin, too, kills Cornwall or has him killed, in an ambush, it
appears, ... He (Arthur) will be his father's son... the people will
come back to me, so foresees evil Queen Mab.

Morgan Le Fey in a charming guise of some other female, sleeps with
her own BROTHER, (Arthur), eventually gives birth to MORDRED, a most
unpleasant character, (could not get him finished fast enough... he is
so hateful!)

So, this is a tale much like the Green Tragedies of the ancient
world... Women are sleeping with their brothers... albeit, here, to
create children with terrible personalities. Men are forced to battle
to the death with their sons...

Other touches: The Rock of Ages -- protector of the Sword in the
Stone...

The Fairies -- The Dragons... not quite lifelike enough. In fact, the
Dragon was laughable;

Arthur... Lancelot, Guinevere, Sir Galahad, all have a part.

MY GOSH I'm doing a whole "Cliff''s Notes" of "Merlin". But a 3 hour
movie deserves some thought and reflection, or at least a swift kick
in the pants.

Arthur is able to extract the Sword in the Stone out of the rock, but
did not get the allegience of the other knights and lords quite so
easily...ARTHUR is never shown as a great king, the legends of king
Arthur are down-played in this film, as it is almost wholly given-up
to the ongoing saga of MERLIN...

Arthur and his son Mordred are both doomed...

Merlin uses the ploy of FORGETTING and IGNORING Queen Mab, which is
the one thing she cannot stand; and in the end, it is implied that she
fades away when nobody thinks of her any more...

IT HAS A HAPPY ENDING~!!! That's a good thing, eh?

These were just NOTES made while watching this epic. "MERLIN" is based
on a series of legends and thus is clearly episodic, much better seen
a little at a time, so that it can sink in, rather than all poured
together, all at the same time, into a flawed whole. The resulting
film is not a happy libation, it tastes like cough syrup, it is almost
impossible to watch it from end-to-end in one sitting. It should be re-
made. I am trying to forget the wan smile of Sam Neill. It got very
tedious watching MERLIN (the actor playing Merlin!) for 3 hours, just
as tedious as listening to the croaking, evil voice of Queen Mab!
Pagans and all who delight in Faerydom, Druidism, Celtic roots, etc.,
will not enjoy this movie as the Age of Magic can't come to an end
fast enough for those early Saxon and/or Norman Christians who told
this tale. --------Ed

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