Screening report on "The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain"

The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain is a Welsh comedy written and directed by Christopher Monger in 1995. It is based on a story that the director’s grandfather told him about the existing village of Ffynnon Taf (‘Taff’s well’) and the nearby Garth Hill.

The film is set in 1917, during the First World War in a small fictional Welsh village of Ffynnon Garw (‘Rough Fountain’ in Welsh).  Two English cartographers, Mr. Garrad (Ian McNeice) and the young Mr. Anson (Hugh Grant), visit the small village to take records and measure its ‘mountain’, the Ffynnon Garw. When it turns out that it is not high enough to be considered a mountain the villagers burst out in great indignation. The originally conflicting Morgan the Goat (Colm Meaney) and the Reverend Mr. Jones (Kenneth Griffith) start a movement in aim of raising the hill to be high enough to be a mountain. Consequently, the villagers have to delay the departure of the cartographers, and make them measure their mountain again.

The Welsh identity takes a quite important place in the film. Not only the director and the location, but the atmosphere is also typically Welsh; the beautiful environment, the language, the people and the mentality are very characteristic. The characters use some words from the Welsh dialect, such as be'chi'ngalw, from the scene where the mechanic explains the two English meant that he had to remove a part from their car. In English it is the same as “whatchamacallit”, so a thing that one cannot remember. The villagers have ginger hair, and they have a unique personality: they are not really hospitable, but they are honest and helpful towards each other. They work a lot and they live their own life, but when it comes to saving the honour of their symbolic mountain, they pull every string to achieve it. 

Absurd and lifelike elements are both present in the film; moreover, light comedy and serious issues also appear. For example, the clue that Morgan the Goat was the father of most of the babies in the village, because of the same hair colour, is difficult to decide if it was true or just a joke. It would be very outrageous if it was true, although it might have had a realistic background, because the men of the village did have to go fighting during the war. The fast and successful raising of the mountain, the way in which all the people worked so hard for the same reason, and that they could  hide it so cleverly from the English men is also quite extraordinary and amazing. On the other hand, the arguments of the Reverend and Morgan, the Innkeeper, are very realistic. The representation of the boy who fought in the war and got mentally hurt is also lifelike, and the scene where he got shock on the mountain in the storm was really touching.

Christopher Monger’s film entertains, makes the viewers think about history and nationality, and mixes funny and absurd elements in only one, 99-minutes-long comedy, in The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain. 

Sources:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112966/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Englishman_Who_Went_Up_a_Hill_But_Came_Down_a_Mountain

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/whatchamacallit