Alright this is going to be a quick one. I’m incredibly sick at the moment, my head is spinning a good bit, but I can still type. This weeks movie, a suggestion from Colm, is:
The Winds of Essex
We open in 1884, the rail road is almost done being built, finally providing easy access to the rest of England. Matilda is the owner of a dress shop has been doing rather well for herself. All of the folks around town like her very much.
At the royal palace the King Edward and Queen Kathryn are trying to get the prince Walter to do something with his life. To find a princess and to have children. He doesn’t seem to be interested in that as he’s more a playboy type. The prince isn’t stupid though, and is a brilliant military strategist who has helped the country out of some very tough times but to his parents dismay he rejects all forms of religion.
As a showing of good will the king, queen and prince all travel to Essex together no the very first time the train enters the station. It is a joyous occasion. There’s a big hoopla and Walter catches a glimpse of Matilda. He chases after her, she doesn’t notice him following her (or so it seems) and she heads back to the dress shop. Walter comes in and there is some dumb scene where he’s trying to impress her and she is not impressed at all. He asks her about the cross she wears around her neck and she tells him that it’s her dead mothers. He eventually has to leave but promises to come back .
So we see scenes of Walter looking around Essex, trying to determine who Matilda is. In all of these scenes she can be seen in the background somewhere, though not at first glance.
He goes back to the dress shop where Matilda now is and they have a discussion about religion and ones self. It’s deep ass shit. They go out to some high beautiful hill that Terrance Malick would film on and they continue their discussion. Walter asks for proof of God, Matilda tells him the winds of Essex. She says something like “Nothing speaks so soft as the winds of Essex.” And thrown throughout the rest of the film are one use phrases like “The seasons change by the winds of Essex,” and “My spirit runs free, like the winds of Essex.”
So begins the affair of Walter and Matilda. Walter doesn’t visit the royal palace as much as he is out with Matilda most of the time. He tells her everything that is going on and everything they are thinking. Though they have two very different view points on a lot, Walter feels he can be open and honest with her. Telling her that he would do away with the churches power once he becomes king. Anyway, time goes by, the king and queen demand to know whats going on, he tells them they are both happy that their son has found someone but they forbid it because she is not royalty.
Let’s wrap this up shall we?
He runs away to be with Matilda, she accepts him into her home to hide away. They have a few more days of their love affair. While the prince sleeps on Christmas Eve, Matilda drives a knife straight through his heart. Turns out that cross around her neck was a symbol for the Knights Templar, she is a crazy descendent of a powerful religious cult and had been ordered to eliminate any threat to the influence of religion. Blah blah blah,
THE END