Identity, religion, and rebelling against tradition in Alan Clarke’s ‘Penda’s Fen’
Alan Clarke devoted much of his career to making television plays for the likes of Half-Hour Story and Play for Today, but there’s one that stands out as something unlike anything else he created: Penda’s Fen.
It might not have been as brutal as Scum or Made in Britain, but 1974’s Penda’s Fen is one of Clarke’s most astonishing pieces of work, journeying into the heart of England’s beautiful pastoral landscapes and uncovering the nightmares intertwined among the roots of tradition and religion. Penned by David Rudkin, the film is a bold dissection of England’s complicated cultural history, with the central protagonist, Stephen, haunted by visions that make him question his identity and where he belongs.
When we first meet Stephen, it’s clear he is a rather unsympathetic character, snobbish and highly strung. Yet, as the film unravels, it’s hard not to feel a level of understanding for the teenager, who reckons with the dawning realisation that he is not destined to live the kind of life he has been conditioned to strive towards.
At the heart of the British countryside, where green fields and quiet backroads are shot with lush attention to detail on 16mm, Stephen’s crisis of identity manifests through images that hark back to the country’s Pagan origins, before Christianity significantly influenced the establishment of traditional social norms.
One of Stephen’s biggest realisations is that he is gay, something that he is tormented by as he has scandalous dreams about a classmate. The son of a clergyman brought up in a strictly religious household, he understands that he is not destined for a traditional nuclear family life, and his dedication to being part of his school cadet force—the ultimate embodiment of masculine power—similarly falls apart.
In one beautiful scene, Stephen is visited by a male angel as he sits by a pond, with the figure quietly emerging from the tall grass with a strangely homoerotic charge, shirtless and painted in gold. Religion and sexuality intertwine as Stephen’s identity weighs heavy on his schoolboy consciousness, awakening for the first time to a new way of life.
The film is quietly rebellious, and with Stephen’s further discovery that he is adopted, having been born to non-English parents, the film questions what it means to be ‘pure’ and to adhere to an acceptable (yet arbitrary) set of standards that have kept society operating to the benefit of patriarchy and heteronormativity. “No, no! I am nothing pure! My race is mixed. My sex is mixed. I am woman and man, light with darkness, nothing pure! I am mud and flame!” Stephen exclaims to his parents near the end of the film.
He rejects tradition, and despite his parents’ attempts to hold him back—even setting a photo of him on fire that results in Stephen’s clothes actually going up in flames—he cannot be burned. He is saved by King Penda, who ruled over Mercia during the 7th century before his reign was interrupted by the arrival of Christianity. Stephen is encouraged to resist.
The film features many striking images, like a ritual involving people willingly having their hands chopped off, and it’s these nightmarish moments that give it a folk horror quality in line with other titles that emerged around this time, like The Wicker Man, The Blood on Satan’s Claw, and Lost Hearts.
Yet Penda’s Fen isn’t necessarily a horror film. Stephen’s spiritual journey is one of rebellion, coming of age, and navigating the long and arduous history that is built into every stream, every tree, and every patch of earth that forms the English countryside, where hard truths are hidden at every turn.
