Based on a short story by Robert Aickman, The Cicerones is a supernatural
tale of cultural tourism gone horribly wrong. Mark Gatiss, like the film's
writer/director Jeremy Dyson a member of the team behind The League of Gentlemen
(BBC, 1999-2002), plays John Trant, an English visitor to an unidentified
central European country. In search of an obscure religious painting at the
Cathedral of Saint Bavon, he finds the building about to close when he arrives
but unwarily enters nonetheless.
The 'cicerones' (guides) of the title are four enigmatic male figures he
meets inside, who lead him progressively deeper into the strange church. Trant
is an innocent abroad, a bloodless intellectual for whom the cathedral's sacred
art is merely a checklist of 'must sees' in a tourist guidebook. He shows
irritation at continental opening times and ignorance of the language of the
country he is visiting. It is the role of the cicerones to confuse, unnerve and
eventually terrify him. This journey of a purportedly rational mind into a land
of superstition that eventually disfigures it resembles Jonathan Harker's
towards the Count's castle in Bram Stoker's Dracula. But it is to M.R.
James's tales of bachelor antiquarians in search of knowledge that Aickman's
story is most obviously indebted, and with its preference for mood and subtle
effects over shocks, Dyson's film emulates the 1960s/70s cycle of James
adaptations beginning with Whistle and I'll Come to You (BBC, tx. 7/5/1968).
Dyson's most notable deviation from Aickman's story is a new prologue, in
which Trant, travelling alone on a rickety train, is confronted by a strange
woman taking two young people to be married. As well as beginning the pattern of
encounters with menacing foreigners, the scene establishes Trant's solitary and
repressed existence. He is asked if he is married, and his hesitant reply - "I'm
sure I shall be - one day" - is tinged with self-deceit. Later, deep inside the
cathedral, the cocksure American man he encounters flirts with Trant in a way
that further compromises his sense of identity.
For the Cathedral of St Bavon itself The Cicerones merges a number of British
churches into an immense Gothic hybrid, with exteriors filmed at Lichfield
Cathedral and interiors at St Albans and St Mary Magdalene, Paddington. The
effective music, featuring organ and suggesting religious chants, is by Joby
Talbot, who also provided the theme music to The League of
Gentlemen.
James Donohue
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