A Field in England (2013) is Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump’s most daringly experimental yet overlooked film. As an alchemic potion of historical drama, psychedelia, formal experimentation, occultism, and folk horror, it eschews any basic generic classification. A Field is well on its way in establishing itself as a cult classic in all its monochromatic glory.

Parachuted into a musket-smoked battlefield of the English Civil War, we follow a disarranged group from a wimpish astrologer to war-wearied soldiers. Rather than continue fighting they are united in finding a nearby alehouse. Things go awry however when Cutler (Ryan Pope), the most veteran-looking of the soldiers, begins to slip magic mushrooms — in with the not-so-magical ones — into a stew.

Enter O’Neil (Michael Smiley): a rival alchemist to Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith) with cut lips and curt tongue. Vain, domineering, and amoral, he is the antithesis of Whitehead. Where Whitehead serves, O’Neil rebels, stealing valuable papers on the occult from their shared master in a mercenary attempt to divine where the treasure lies in this field in England. The cunning O’Neil, and his henchman Cutler, subjugate Whitehead and the soldiers into uncovering these riches.

“An anarchic atmosphere pervades”

Historically, the English Civil War was a period of brutishness, but also one of unearthing and revolution. A Field recreates this feel, packed with visual metaphors of revolving, gyration, and winding. An anarchic atmosphere pervades.

“The Puritans were trying to iron paganism and magic out of Catholicism”, Wheatley dissects of the Cromwellian epoch, “they were killing God because they were killing the king, God’s representative. They were writing their own rules”. This sentiment is luminous in A Field, presenting England as a country embroiled in war, doubt, and angst; a place of radical uncertainty — a country turned in on itself.

Whitehead appears at first cowardly, servile, and weak-willed; a worshipper of masters, be them divine or secular. That had provided stability until he crossed paths with O’Neil. Here Whitehead splits: forced to use the occult practise of divination to find the treasure spot and feed O’Neil’s gluttony, he betrays his Christian morals. Whitehead and the soldiers are forced to dig once the treasure spot is divined.

Digging and ranting begins. The declaration ‘I am my own man’ is being muttered between the tyrannised soldiers. Digging and ranting — visual metaphors which pertain, historically, to the counterculture dissenter groups of the Civil War. The Diggers, led by Gerald Winstanley were a proto-socialist group, seizing enclosed land for the masses. The Ranters were more extreme — early anarchists who viewed free love, smoking, and swearing all as viable routes to personal, spiritual liberation. Wheatley taps into these contextual, revolutionary vibrations utilising these visual metaphors.

Whitehead turns from slave to leader, escaping the dug pit and O’Neil. Crawling to a row of liberty cap fungi he begins to proclaim his newfound mission: to “chew up all the ill intentions inflicted by men like you onto men like me.” Whitehead devours a copious amount of mushrooms; O’Neil gradually realises he has lost all authority, unintelligible to what has been unleashed.

“A spectaular, trippy delve into historical revolution and consciousness”

What follows can only be described as the most spectacular trip scene in the history of psychedelic cinema. Wheatley uses it to play “with persistence of vision” — with two streams of images at twelve frames, the “brain begins to split in half [as] there’s a limit to what you can take in”. A Field is part of a group of films which have explored alternative narratives of the Civil War with the theme and within the context of psychedelics. Likewise, Thomas Clay’s Fanny Lye Deliver’d (2019) explores the matters of hallucinogens, radical politics, and the sexual politics of Cromwellian England.

Wheatley characterises the trip scene as a “regurgitation” of Whitehead’s memory and the film. All is churned up, unearthed, and new realities and understanding are being built. Wheatley successfully utilises this experimental method to “put the audience into that mindset”.

Through this, Whitehead actualises his purpose. The final scene of the trip is two Whiteheads, mirrored on each side, seemingly running away from each other until they are dragged together to the middle where they are finally fused. A perfect visual metaphor for Whitehead’s new manifestation as a complete subject, his “own man”.

“It’s about revolution and trying to find a truth,” Wheatley concludes. Within the historical context of revolution lies Whitehead’s individual, internal insurrection. A transformed hero, he is now a complete subject, alchemically transmuted. Returning through the hedge to the battlefield, Whitehead is now presented as cloaked, assured, wearied, and heroic. We are left wondering what exactly this field in England is — certainly more than just a pastoral landscape. It is a space of magic, transformation, transmuting dust to gold, of self-discovery; a place enkindling the rebellious undercurrents of the Civil War and its impact on the individual psyche. Perhaps it’s a metaphysical field we all must visit — at least once.

A spectacular, trippy delve into historical revolution and consciousness — Ben Wheatley & Amy Jump’s A Field in England is a must-watch, cult classic of modern British cinema.