A murder mystery film set in a medieval village. After an outbreak of plague, the villagers make the decision to shut their borders so as to protect the disease from spreading (see the real life case of the village of Eyam). As the disease decimates the population, however, some bodies start showing up that very obviously were not killed by plague.
Since nobody has been in or out since the outbreak began, the killer has to be somebody in the local community.
The village constable (who is essentially just Some Guy, because being a medieval constable was a bit like getting jury duty, if jury duty gave you the power to arrest people) struggles to investigate the crime without exposing himself to the disease, and to maintain order as the plague-stricken villagers begin to turn on each other.
The killer strikes repeatedly, seemingly taking advantage of the empty streets and forced isolation to strike without witnesses. As with any other murder mystery, the audience is given exactly the same information to solve the crime as the detective.
Except, that is, whenever another character is killed, at which point we cut to the present day where said character's remains are being carefully examined by a team of modern archaeologists and historians who are also trying to figure out why so many of the people in this plague-pit died from blunt force trauma.
The archaeologists and historians, btw, are real experts who haven't been allowed to read the script. The filmmakers just give them a model of the victim's remains, along with some artefacts, and they have to treat it like a real case and give their real opinion on how they think this person died.
We then cut back to the past, where the constable is trying to do the same thing. Unlike the archaeologists, he doesn't have the advantage of modern tech and medical knowledge to examine the body, but he does have a more complete crime scene (since certain clues obviously wouldn't survive to be dug up in the modern day) and personal knowledge from having probably known the victim.
The audience then gets a more complete picture than either group, and an insight into both the strengths and limits of modern archaeology, explaining what we can and can't learn from studying a person's remains.
At the end of the film, after the killer is revealed and the main plot is resolved, we then get to see the archaeologists get shown the actual scenes where their 'victims' were killed, so they can see how well their conclusions match up with what 'really' happened.
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Most directors (it seems): The sexiest thing is sex.
Me: The sexiest thing is when two people spend weeks staring at each other in longing and then their hands brush against each other, and then they hug, but like with their whole bodies and one person puts their hand on the back of the other's head and it feels like they will never stop hugging because they've wanted it so bad, and then they kiss ONCE (1 time) but it feels earned.
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I am sick to DEATH of "attractive" celebrities being cast in period dramas. The "face that knows emails" problem is so much more pervasive than people acknowledge. Even actors who haven't had obvious plastic surgery have shaved, waxed, and polished their faces into absolute submission. Bring back actors who look 1000% suited to living in a time period before the inception of Sephora.
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Why does everyone make Elinor carry all the heavy emotional news???
-Lucy Steele tells her about her secret engagement
-Colonel Brandon tells her about Eliza Jr. and has her decide how much to tell Marianne
-Colonel Brandon has her tell Edward that he's giving him the living at Delaford
-Willoughby storms in and tells her his self-pitying "defense" and tells her to relay it to Marianne
Plus she's carrying everyone else's hopes and pains as well as her own.
She's basically the emotional burden version of Louisa from Encanto.
//Edit: I spelled Luisa wrong. It's Luisa Madrigal.
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disclaimer: yes, I am complaining about cheating in media. Because, yes, writers have the freedom to create what they want but if the morality in creation is free for all forms of media, but no piece of art is exempt from criticism, and that includes criticism on personal moral grounds. I betcha if I said Harry Potter is good, actually, everyone on here would flood my blog telling me I am wrong because of the author's intense prejudice. That being said, I am criticizing cheating in fiction, If you don't like that, don't interact
So often lately I see period dramas where the husband cheats on the wife (ex. Poldark, The Essex Serpent, Queen Charlotte, The Great)...and not only do I despise the cheating trope with every fibre of my being to where I get panic attacks when I consume the media...but specifically with period dramas...
Do these writers not understand the greater implications of a husband cheating on a wife during these periods? More than just the humiliation and heartbreak in the case of a loving, good marriage just like it is today.
In the Western world, probably until certain laws were enacted in the 1900's, if a woman married a man, she was legally his property. She had no legal identity under him. She was financially dependent on him. Any wages she made would automatically go to her husband. Her children were also not legally her children- they belonged to the father. If the husband died, even if the wife was still alive, the children were legally considered orphans.
Women could only rarely gain a divorce from their husbands. In England in the mid-1800's specifically, if a wife divorced a husband she had to prove he had to not only cheat but also be physically abusive, incestuous, or commit bestiality. On the other hand, a husband could divorce a wife just for being unfaithful. Because, kids, there were sexual double standards.
Getting married was often the endgame for a lot of women during that time. Sometimes you couldn't make your own living enough- marriage was a way to secure your entire future financially, with more than enough money to get by. If you were a spinster and middle class, you could get by with a job. But if you are an upper-class lady, the one thing a lady does not do is get a job and work. So upper-class spinsters basically were dependent on their families to get by (ex. Anne Elliott in Persuasion faces this with her own toxic family). As strange as it sounded today, marriage gave them some freedom to go about since a husband could be persuaded sometimes more easily than a father and one had a different home, their servants, etc. A husband was your foundation entirely for being a part of society, and standing up as your own woman.
So if a husband cheated on a wife, that was a threat to take all of that away.
He could give a lot of money that could be used to support his wife and children to the mistress. He could completely abandon said wife for the mistress. And since the wife legally couldn't get a job as he still lived, she would be dependent on any money he would said- and that is IF he sent over any money.
He could take her to court and publicly humiliate her to get a divorce away from her (look up the separation of Charles and Kate Dickens, he would call her mentally ill and say her cooking was bad and that she was having more children than they could keep up with all while having an affair and divorcing her to be with the misteress). And even if the wife was the nicest, more proper, goodest, more rule-abiding never-keeping-a-toe-out-of-line lady in town...as a man, the law was default on his side (look up Caroline Norton's A Letter to the Queen which details exactly that, the poor woman had her earnings as a writer taken by her husband and was denied access to her children from said husband)
So yeah...even if there was "no love" between them (and anytime the wife is portrayed as too boring or too bitchy so He HaS tO cHeAt is brought up is...pretty victim blamey)
So yeah. Period drama writers, if you have the husband have an affair ...just consider the reality of these things and address them, maybe punish the husband for once (*gasp* men facing consequences for their actions?!?!!), and if not, just please find other options and other tropes and devices for once.
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