It's 1912. Charles Castle (Toby Stephens) loses his new bride (Rachel Shelley) in a snow crevasse in Switzerland. During the war, he works as a war photographer not caring about dying. After the war in London, he takes portraits of people inserting their lost love ones into the pictures and debunks a photo forgery of fairies in front of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's group. Beatrice Templeton brings him photos of her daughters Clara and Ana with fairies. Charles can't find any tampering in the image and decides to find out for himself in the small town of Burkinwell. Beatrice tells him that she had seen the fairies herself but then he finds her dead in the woods. Her husband Reverend Templeton (Ben Kingsley) is much respected. Linda (Emily Woof) is the kids' nanny. The kids eat a flower that allow them into the world of fairies.It's the feel of a bit of moody light horror at the start. It could have gone that way but it goes more to the magical fantasy. Yet it's not surreal or fanciful. It's a very fascinating unusual mix of tones. Ben Kingsley has the juicier part and plays it very well. The movie climaxes with an interesting fight but then it fades a little. It needs to wrap up a little quicker. That's probably my only minor complaint.

This is one of the saddest and yet so profoundly beautiful films that I'd ever seen. The recurring theme from Beethoven's 7th Symphony deepens the mood, which is heartbreaking throughout the movie. The story seems simple: a man who lost his newly wed wife is desperate to find proof of the existence of afterlife, and falls into an intricate web of fantasy and reality rather than romance. But what permeates the whole story, and in fact makes it beautiful, is despair and sadness. Sadness even more than despair. This is one of the most beautiful movies about emotions that I know. It's also a beautiful movie about photography, one that sees its magic and its illusionary character from a very different angle than Antonioni's "Blow-up", but then marginally comes to similar conclusions about the art.(By the way, I believe that the "factual error" pointed out on this board, that photography has always been forbidden in British courts, is actually a purposeful licence rather than mistake: Charles is bombarded by flashes the same way like when he tried to capture the fairies, and the sound also resembles the actual bombings from the WW1 sequence. It therefore makes a very nice touch.) Another great asset of the story is that we never know what is what - I keep wondering which world and which story is real: the one that we are immersed in after Charles recovers in Switzerland, or the one that unites the beginning and the end: the attempt at saving the wife's life. Or maybe Charles dies in that snowstorm, or does not recover, and is looking for his wife in the limbo between the worlds, until he finds the passage? That would explain the magical tree, the outwordly girls, the sequence of deaths, the supernatural strength of the vicar; and on the 'realistic' level the fact that first Charles photographs the dead in the war, and then specializes in the trick photos that allows to take photographs of the living with their dead relatives. He is blind when he is being treated in Switzerland, and all the main story may as well be his ravings when he's dying: we never see him regain sight and walk, we are moved to the trenches immediately, and he does not behave like a living man there.And maybe Charles is a fairy to begin with? He moved too quickly for the camera to catch him properly on his own wedding photograph, after all... The inverted sequence of the ball, the mystery of the door - all this points at some unrealistic touch to the main storyline.The actors are superb; I wish Toby Stephens played more characters like this, his Charles is an absolute masterpiece, particularly in the last scenes. Ben Kingsley is demonic, and the way he portrays the vicar makes one ask who he really is (for me he is just the adversary - the diabolos - of Charles, and his vision of heaven is hell for the main character). The girls are fine (both Emily Woof and Frances Barber give really grasping performances), and so is Edward Hardwicke Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - a nice touch in the story, which is after all based on the hoax that played such a prominent role in his life.

Photographing Fairies is directed by Nick Willing who co-adapts with Chris Harrald from the book of the same name written by Steve Szilagyi. It stars Toby Stephens, Emily Woof, Ben Kingsley, Frances Barber & Philip Davis. Music is scored by Simon Boswell and John DeBorman is the cinematographer. Plot finds Stephens as photographer Charles Castle, a level headed man who took delight in debunking the Cottingley Fairies pictures as being fake. However, this brings him into contact with the Templeton family and what appears to be an authentic looking image of a tiny fairy. It's the beginning of journey that will prove to be as magical as it is dangerous.No! This is not the fairy film about the girls who faked the Cottingley Fairies pictures. Released the same year, that film was called Fairy Tale: A True Story, a very nice film in its own right, but this is a very different animal. Very much a unique film, Photographing Fairies has a number of words that frequently crop up when reading about, or discussing it. Weird, hypnotic, beautiful, tragic, odd, haunting, dreamy, surreal and poetic, any one of those can be used to describe Nick Willing's movie. Ultimately it's the word mystical that best sums it up, with the film weaving together intriguing premise's that in turn are played out with gorgeous visuals. Charles Castle's search for the truth is not merely that, himself in grief, as he searches for physical evidence, it leads him to something more, arguably something all encompassing and not worldly. The movie poses many questions as it explores the likes of paganism, animism and the role of hallucinogens in bringing to life a world beyond the physical one we all know. Refreshingly, we the audience are not fed the answers, and the film is all the better for it.More known for his work on music videos, Nick Willing blasted out of the directing blocks with this as his debut big screen offering. That he hasn't gone on to far better things is a mystery given the first class work he does here. Some of the scenes here are remarkable, truly, and aided considerably by DeBorman's pin-sharp photography he's made a visually hypnotic interest story that's paced to precision. Simon Boswell provides a swirling romantic score, flecked with mystic tones and nicely entwined with Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, it's very tonally correct and worthy of re-visits on its own. The cast are on good form, with Kingsley doing creepy folk religious and Stephens a nice line in a man hurting within, showing cynical arrogance, yet opening up his layers the further he delves into the mystery. Come the finale, a tragic-beauty finale at that, the film has come full circle and it's credit to Stephens that he has been able to carry us along with him at all times. Emily Woof (Velvet Goldmine/The Full Monty) also shines bright in the difficult (spiritual) romantic role, while the child actors are thankfully adorable and never annoying.A film to capture the imagination of those with an open mind or for those with a leaning to the mystical, Photographing Fairies is a little gem. 9/10

If you have cable and the SciFi Channel, you may have had thepleasure of catching this little gem. I kept seeing it in parts andeven in the little snippets, it drew me in and had such a hauntingquality. It was on the other night and I just sat and watched it all theway through and despite the fact that I'd seen some scenesbefore, it still held such a wonderful presence. It's hard to reallydescribe the movie -- part love story, part fantasy, with a little bit ofthe Big Question over exactly what the afterlife is. Thecinematography is absolutely picturesque, almost like watching aMerchant Ivory production, but with a bit of fairy magic thrown in.Ben Kingsley is an interesting addition to the cast. I wish therewas more characterization done on all the main roles. You get asense of where everyone comes from in terms of motivation, butmore background would have made for a richer film. The pace issometimes inconsistent, moving quickly in the beginning, thenslowing, then speeding up again. But the film's dry English witmakes for enjoyable moments of irreverence. It's still just anoverall beautiful film. Very bittersweet and heartbreaking inmoments. The end is shot with such care and emotion. Asfantastic as the premise is, the heart of the movie is somethingeveryone can understand -- the loss of a loved one and the chanceto rekindle a spirit burdened with sorrow. A funny bit of irony -- theactor who played Watson in the BBC Sherlock Holmes series is inthis movie and he plays (har har har) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.