CHEMICAL WEDDING
UK, 2008, 90 minutes, Colour.
Simon Callow, Kal Weber, Lucy Cudden, Jud Charlton, Paul Mc Dowell, John Shrapnel.
Directed by Julian Doyle.
Chemical Wedding is a bizarre film. It treats the real-life character, Aleister Crowley, an early 20th century Satanist who saw himself as a sorcerer. He was characterised in the film, The Devil Rides Out (1967), and played by Charles Grey.
The film opens in 1947, focusing on Crowley, two young undergraduates curious about his work – and finding him, drug-addicted, dying.
The scene shifts to the present, focusing on an eccentric lecturer played by Simon Callow, full of stammering and nervousness. He goes through a scientific technological process and becomes Crowley or at least is possessed by him. His character changes completely – with Simon Callow giving a very fruity over-the-top performance. In the meantime, an academic from the United States with similar technology comes to investigate, begins a relationship with a young university student journalist, becomes involved with the man in charge of the technological experiments in England.
The film is rather bizarre – and often very silly. This is the case with some of the performances as well as the dialogue.
It is difficult to know how much of the film is meant to be comedy, how much is meant to be serious, how much is a reflection on science, science fiction, superstition, magic and Satanism.
1.The idea of the film? Its execution? Critical disparagement? The characters, the arch dialogue?
2.The world of magic, sorcerers, Satanists, science, technology, science fiction?
3.The academic background, Cambridge, 1947, the 21st century, British developments in technology, American developments?
4.1947, Aleister Crowley and his reputation (and the quotation from Oscar Wilde that Aleister Crowley is a madman who thinks he is Aleister Crowley. Crowley’s own dictum: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law? The satanic background, his illness, drug taking, hallucinations, the Devil, his academic visitors, their discussions, the spells, the effect on him, the effect on them, his death?
5.The 21st century, Crowley’s reputation, the development of the machines, time, possession? Real or fictitious technology? The American developments, Cambridge developments? The research, the interviews? The background?
6.Oliver Haddo, Simon Callow’s performance, shy, stammering? The academic? His work, ambitions, the friendship with Victor, going through the experiment, the effect on him, being possessed or a reincarnation of Crowley? The change in behaviour, megalomania, power? The students, the experiments, preoccupation with sex, the supernatural? The confrontations, the change in character and behaviour? His undoing?
7.The American professor, Joshua, and his concern, technology, the discussions with Victor, the meeting with Lia, the interviews, the relationship? Things going awry? Dealing with the crisis? Lia, her paper, university student, flatmate, her friends, the relationship with Joshua, the search, the dangers?
8.Victor, in charge of the laboratory, relationship with Joshua, with Oliver? The consequences of his experiments?
9.The locals, Rose, relationships, sex, violence?
10.The title and its meaning? A bizarre subject and bizarre entertainment?
11.Joshua, his discovery about Crowley, occult rituals, reincarnation in the 21st century, using the experimental suit, the machine, winding back time, erasing the period from the memory of everybody – except the academic who visited Crowley when he was young?
