WICKER - Storytelling Made Simple
If you haven't already seen the surprising comedy Wicker, directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson and starring Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård, we highly recommend making it your next weekend activity! This charming and unexpectedly sexy film showcases the beauty of nature, the complexities of community, and most importantly, that love comes when least expected.
The film follows a lonely older woman who has endured her fair share of bullying from her fellow villagers. Desperate and out of options, she asks the town's basket weaver to make her a husband out of wicker.
A Lush Soundtrack
Anna Meredith should get her flowers for developing such a lively soundtrack that spans beautiful melodies and unsettling rhythms. The use of traditional instruments like recorders and simple strings keeps the entire film well-grounded in its setting. Long, slow shots of tedious work are paired with delicate accompaniments, allowing the audience to sit back and appreciate the work rather than rush through it.
There's also a great deal of sound design in the film, from the creaking of the wicker husband to the splashing of water—and even the sounds of a ladybug's many legs walking over a hand. Wicker does a masterful job of letting the relatively quiet ambient sounds of a technology-free world shine in all their glory.
Give the soundtrack a listen! While you're listening, we suggest you burn Stonemoss Chapel or A Viking's Welcome to set the mood.
Vivid Visuals
Wicker takes place in a small, isolated village nestled in a lush, green landscape. With no cities to escape to, we find ourselves feeling the pressure of small social circles. With no new blood to freshen things up, one's survival becomes intertwined with how they're received by the surrounding community.
While the community may feel stagnant, the visuals certainly aren't. Each costume is intricately detailed with elements that showcase each character's occupation. The basket maker wears a darker, striped pattern, the fisherwoman is haggard and oily, and the tailor's wife is a shining beacon of couture, long before the term was ever coined. Oh, as an aside, all the characters are named after their occupations, so there's literally never a moment where you think, "Wait, who?"
Seasonality
Similar to The Green Knight, Wicker uses chapter titles to break up the story—this time by season. We go through an entire year with these characters and watch how the landscape changes with the weather, climate, and, of course, human intervention. Each title shot focuses on a single willow tree that goes from vibrant in the summer, drenched in the fall, harvested in the winter, and finally back to growth in the spring. The cyclical visuals of time passing are common in medieval stories, with so much of the villagers' lives depending on the time of year.
This seasonality is captured in our HOMESTEAD adventure module, which has you and your players work together to develop a village over three seasons.
