I saw an interesting re-play of an old movie, A Fairy Tale, which we played back this evening during the Movie Night at the Theosophical Society. The movie was made in the late 1990s (it was on VHS, complete with previews for coming attractions in 1998). It gave a great look back into the mind of one of the strangest phenomena yet described - at least in my book - fairies.
The movie entitled Fairytale, is based upon a true story, told from the point of view of two children, living in England during the time of world war 1. The children, it turns out, have been having regular interactions with wee folk, or faeries (not sure of the actual spelling). At one point, they "borrow"a brand new (circal 1916) box camera and get several pictures of tiny winged people - fairies - interacting with them.
This takes place as world war 1 is raging in France and their father is off fighting for the British. Their mother is also dead, so they are living with their uncle and aunt. Their Aunt is badly missing her sister, their mother, and desperately wants to believe in anything that might connect her to the afterlife. Meanwhile, the uncle is a rather open-minded but skeptical - skeptical, that is, until he sees the photographs. The father is a photographer, a rare breed in the early 20th century. He develops the pictures and discovers the images - and the rest of the story stems from there.
We meet two famous historical figures of the early 1900's, Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle has lost his son (not sure if it was in the war, or what) and is also predisposed to the idea of mediumship. We see Houdini portrayed initially as quite a skeptic and debunker. As the story progresses, they get wind of the pictures and investigate for themselves.
The movie does a great job of portraying Houdini as a skeptical investigator, and in the end he appears to be stumped. He doesn't really believe in fairies, but at the same time, he comes to the conclusion that the pictures are legitimate. Thus, like so many rational investigators are forced to do when finally confronted with something that cannot be easily explained, he simply says that whatever happened is beyond his understanding. Thus, the movie does a good job of portraying him as a good model for an investigator - rational but open to the eventuality that some things occur far beyond our explanation.
In the movie, we see everything from the childrens' point of view, with the fantastical being real. We see the fairies flitting around and thus, in the context of the film, we know they are real. Yet then we look at them from the adult point of view and see how they "couldn't possibly be real". In the end, we are left with the age-old paradox - it couldn't possibly be real but it couldn't be anything else but.
On my own website, I have an article entitled Wonder and Rationality, the Dilemma of a Skeptical UFO Investigator, in which I posit the same scenario - using UFOs rather than fairies. What does the rational investigator do when confronted with the extraordinary. In the end, Houdini does exactly what I would endeavor to do. He concludes that there does not appear to be a hoax and whatever happened has been legitimately recorded (making absolutely sure that is correct, of course). He states that whatever the children experienced is unexplained - then leaves it at that.
While I would have to be pretty skeptical about the actual premise, that fairies are real, in the context of the movie we simply accept that they are and build the story around that. Ultimately, the real lesson is in the joy of seeing the world through the eyes of the child. The fantastical is real and the world is wondrous. Like the shamans of native cultures, they see the world as a place of spirits and wonders and it is only our hard-nosed western world that takes that away as we grow up.
I loved the movie for that, if nothing else. It was a great study in contrasts between the child, greedy skeptical adults and lovely earth spirits flitting about in the garden. It was truly aptly named - A Fairy Tale.
