Britain's Wicca Man - dokumentarni film

Prije nekoliko tjedana sam naišla na najavu za dokumentarni film Britain's Wicca Man (u slobodnom prijevodu Britanski wiccan) koji govori o Geraldu Gardneru i osnovama wicce. Strašno me zaintrigirao, a još i više kada sam shvatila da ga ne mogu naći! Problem je bio to što je bio prikazan na kanalu ABC u Australiji, a time je i bio rezerviran samo za australske gledatelje. Pretražila sam cijeli internet, ali bezuspješno.....do danas! :D Izgleda da ga je netko postavio na Youtube čim je izašao u Veliku Britaniju. Mislim da moramo svi biti zahvalni na tome ;)

Odmah ispod možete pogledati najavu, ako vas to dovoljno zaintrigira, možete pogledati i cijeli film kojeg također možete naći u ovom postu.

Najavu za Britain's Wicca Man možete pogledati na Vimeu.

Dokumentarni film Britain's Wicca Man

Dokumentarni film vodi poznati prof. Ronald Hutton koji je napisao mnoštvo knjiga koje se bave povijesnim i religijskom temama, no njegov fokus je svakako povijest britanskog paganizam. U filmu se pojavljuju još neke poznate ličnost modernog okultizma poput Christine Oakley-Harrington (Visoke svećenice), Gardnerova biografa Philipa Heseltona, Johna Belhama-Paynea (Visokog svećenika) i drugih. 

Iako je prilično kratak, ovaj me film oduševio prvenstveno jer predstavlja wiccu u njenom pravom svjetlu. Čak i snimke Geralda Gardnera nisu preokrenute kako bi odale krivi dojam. Izrazito mi je drago što su stavili snimku njega kako opovrgava da su vještičji rituali orgije, što su stalno naglašavali da je u fokusu wicce priroda i što je jednostavno rečeno da se ne radi o štovanju Sotone. Makar je sve ovo do sada bezbroj puta naglašeno, nekima i dalje ne ulazi u glavu!

Simpatično mi je što su naveli i primjer slavnog filma Čovjek od pruća (eng. The Wicker Man, što je zapravo igra riječima pošto se riječi "wicker" i "wicca" isto čitaju po standardnom britanskom) koji u potpunosti odaje krivu sliku wicce. Ovo već zalazi u područje popularne vještičje kulture o kojoj također planiram pisati kad-tad na blogu. Zanimljivo je kako se vještičarstvo interpretira u medijima poput filma ili knjiga.

Također su dotaknute još neke zanimljive teme na koje ljudi obično ne obraćaju pozornost, poput odnosa vojske i policije prema paganskim vjerama. Već sam nekoliko rasprava vodila o tome kako je teško komponirati vještičji zakon (naudi nikome) sa poslom policajca, ili još teže, vojnika.

Ovo je odlična prilika za najavu mog sljedećeg posta. U filmu se spominje i slavna 1951. godina koja je označila kraj progona vještica povlačenjem Zakona o vještičarstvu (eng. Witchcraft acts). Točan datum bi bio 22. lipnja 1951. koji nam se bliži. Ovdje ne bih o tome jer ću se na tu temu raspisati uskoro. 

Sve u svemu, film preporučam svakome koga interesira vještičarstvo i wicca, a zaključak filma bih svakako svrstala među najbolje "definicije" wicce i vještičarstva uopće!

"Whereas other faiths say 'This is what you should feel about the Divine', this one says 'This is how you can feel divine'." 

"Dok druge vjere kažu 'Ovako bi se trebao osjećati prema Božanskom', ova kaže 'Ovako se možeš osjećati božanstveno'." 

Nadam se da ćete uživati u filmu jednako koliko i ja! :)

Do sljedećeg posta,

vaša Witch's Cat

Britain's Wicca Man - a documentary

A few days ago, I came across the trailer for a new documentary entitled Britain's Wicca Man which talks about Gerald Gardner and the basics of Wicca. It really intrigued me and even more so when I realized that I couldn't find it anywhere! The problem was that it was shows on Australia's ABC and was automatically available only for Australian viewers. I searched all over the Internet but without success...until today! :D It looks like someone uploaded the video on Youtube as soon as it was released in Great Britain. I believe we're all very grateful for this ;)

You can have a look at the trailer just below and if that catches your attention, then I recommend you watch the whole documentary which you can also find in this post.

You can watch the trailer for Britain's Wicca Man on Vimeo.

The documentary Britain's Wicca Man

As you can see, prof. Ronald Hutton is the presenter. You may know him by his many books on various historical and religious topics, although his field of expertise is definitely history of British Paganism. Other important personas of modern occultism are in the film, for example Christina Oakley-Harrington (a High Priestess), Gardner's biographer Philip Heselton, John Belham-Payne (a High Priest) and others.

Even if it is quite short, this documentary amazed me mainly because it showed what Wicca really is like. Even the clips of Gerald Gardner weren't altered or taken out of context to make them leave the wrong impression. I am especially glad that they put the clip of him denying Wiccan rituals to be orgies, that they constantly emphasized that Wicca is nature-based and that it is very simply said that Wiccans do not worship the Devil. Even though all of this has been said a million times up to now, some people still don't seem to understand it. 

I also find it interesting that they mentioned the popular movie The Wicker Man (which is a pun since "wicker" and "wicca" have the same pronunciation in British English) saying that Wicca isn't anything like what it is depicted as in that film. This falls under the category of popular Witchcraft culture about which I plan to talk more, but all in due time. It really is interesting how Witchcraft can be (and has been) interpreted in media such as movies or books.

Some other fascinating topics were touched upon, some of which people don't normally pay any attention to like the attitude of the army and police force towards Pagan religions. I have already talked with a few people about how hard it is to incorporate the Wiccan Rede (harm none) into your everyday life if you're a policeman, or even harder if you're in the army.

This is an excellent opportunity to announce the topic of my next post. The famous year 1951 show up in the movie. This year marked the end of the prosecution of Witches since it was precisely then that the Witchcraft acts were repealed. The exact date would be June 22, 1951 and as you can see, its anniversary will be in a few days. But I won't talk about that anymore here since I'll be writing about it soon enough.

All in all, I recommend this movie to anyone who is interested in Witchcraft and Wicca, and I would also like to mention that the conclusion of the movie could easily be one of the best "definitions" of Wicca I have ever heard!

"Whereas other faiths say 'This is what you should feel about the Divine', this one says 'This is how you can feel divine'." 

I hope that you'll enjoy the movie as much as I did! :)
Until next time. Yours,
Witch's Cat