The Wicker Man

Yesterday, we watched The Wicker Man (1973) and I liked it. I didn't hate it, and I didn't love it, but I liked it. There were a lot of things that I didn't understand about the plot, such as why certain people denied knowing Rowan while others said they knew her but didn't know how she died, and then at the end it turned out that she wasn't dead, but the entire thing was a trick to get the police officer there to sacrifice him. I'm all for a good plot twist, but I don't think that it was necessarily executed successfully. I also didn't understand why it was so musical; there was an entire dance sequence with Willow dancing naked and banging on the walls, and the entire time, I was completely confused about what was going on. Then, there were little boys dancing spinning around a tree with their junk tied to ribbons, singing about nature and reproduction. I understood that it was a Pagan thing, but I didn't know why it was relevant. I was annoyed at the police officer the entire time because I didn't like how he treated the people on the island and kept talking about Christianity like it was the only way to live life. At the end, he sang a hymn while he was burning to death, and all I could think was, "Dude, take a hint, you are not getting saved." He had chance after chance to escape, but he didn't, and that was also kind of frustrating to me. I think that when the movie first came out, more people would've sympathized with him because there were more extreme Christians, but now, because everybody is so accepting, most people like the Pagans better. They outsmarted him completely, and although I don't agree with killing people, I thought that they were pretty okay people.