A lot of work was put into creating the world shown in 'Hawk'. The cinematography and locations are used perfectly to convey how the contrast of pure nature and darkness fits the film's hybrid Fantasy - Horror elements. The green of the scenery stands out beautifully against the dark imagery of haunted Forrests and a misty colour pallets that captures the dread that makes this world (the bright yellow beaks of the hawks was a particularly nice touch in this fitting blended contrast of shades). I would also say that 'Hawk' immediately struck me as a great blend of vastly different mediums of iconic fantasy like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones as the film is clearly not the type of fantasy you grew up watching as a kid and the use of narration (also a great narrative technique to help the audience understand that Rowan's telling the story from childhood to adulthood) is fairytale like in its world building respectively.
However, I didn't connect with Rowan's character and the journey he goes through during this narrative. While a slow paced build up is a great way to ease us into the narrative, I felt the story meandered a lot despite the film's best efforts to illustrate how strong Rowan's bond with Tide and how the latter's death impacts him into adulthood. As well as this, I had a hard time keeping up with what was going on, too much is thrown into the history of this world and the presentation of the Gods was very vague (another reviewer said that the mythology shown is apparently Celtic so having that element be clearer in the characters' costumes would have been much appreciated). I felt a shorter first half would have served the narrative better by simply focusing on easing us into this very detailed world and giving the characters' stronger personalities as compensation for the short amount of time that we see them.
Then again fantasy isn't my cup of tea but that often is the reality for many audiences so maybe dumbing things down a bit (whilst not completely sacrificing the originality of the story) would have improved the experience for me as an audience member as there are some really great ideas in 'Hawk' like the alluding to Christianity, which is the dominant religion in our reality, to contrast the intimate and almost timeless world inhabited by many Gods.
However, I didn't connect with Rowan's character and the journey he goes through during this narrative. While a slow paced build up is a great way to ease us into the narrative, I felt the story meandered a lot despite the film's best efforts to illustrate how strong Rowan's bond with Tide and how the latter's death impacts him into adulthood. As well as this, I had a hard time keeping up with what was going on, too much is thrown into the history of this world and the presentation of the Gods was very vague (another reviewer said that the mythology shown is apparently Celtic so having that element be clearer in the characters' costumes would have been much appreciated). I felt a shorter first half would have served the narrative better by simply focusing on easing us into this very detailed world and giving the characters' stronger personalities as compensation for the short amount of time that we see them.
Then again fantasy isn't my cup of tea but that often is the reality for many audiences so maybe dumbing things down a bit (whilst not completely sacrificing the originality of the story) would have improved the experience for me as an audience member as there are some really great ideas in 'Hawk' like the alluding to Christianity, which is the dominant religion in our reality, to contrast the intimate and almost timeless world inhabited by many Gods.