Ian
(Flash Review)Taking place in the early 1900's in Scotland, the story follows the challenges of a farmer woman from her youth to young adult and the dramatic challenges placed in front of her. How does she and her brother deal with a physical and an emotionally abusive father as he mistreats them and his wife? How she takes control of her life when she finds prosperity and love? And later when war comes to their land, how will she handle the situation her new husband is placed in and the effects on him and their family? This film is told at a properly quiet pace for the period and culture. With its measured pace, it still delivers many dramatic and emotional moments with the help of stunning cinematography that really punctuates the scenes. While subdued, the actors wear their emotions with a raw passion. Overall, this is a solid emotionally dramatic period piece with a barrage of painterly cinematic scenes.
manders_steve
Sadly, my experience of this film fell a long way short of the encouraging flyer and enthusiastic local newspaper reviews. While it is visually impressive, and capturing what Scotland probably looked like in the very early 1900s, I just never got the point of what it was all about. The sound in our local art-house cinema was fairly quiet, and combined with accents and what I suppose may have been local dialect words meant I missed quite a few possibly critical words, which couldn't have helped. But it really seemed slow, and outlasted its welcome.I understand it is based on the first book of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's highly regarded Scottish trilogy (which I've neither read nor heard of). Maybe the book would allow more personal imagination and the anticipation of possibly happier times to come. But there's not a lot of uplifting encouragement in this outing.Agyness Deyn as Chris Guthrie was visually convincing, ageing from a high school girl to an early 30s mother of a six year old. But somehow her strength of character in the high points wasn't matched by the quiet, slow and lethargic impression in most of the film. There was little explanation of why her father was as he was, nor her husband's behaviour in his brief return from WW1. If it's appealing to you, I suggest go to the cinema, because I think the small screen would remove this film's strength – its visual impact.
gsandra614
This movie is the most artistically excellent film I've ever seen. The frames in this movie could be stopped and transferred to oil on canvas and mounted in an art museum. The photography was flawless as were the performances. (My one criticism was Ewan's total change of personality when he came home on furlough. You'd think he would be eager to be with his loving wife -- but he went off his head and raped her. Their idyllic life was torn apart.)Also -- who was that twit in the pulpit pushing political coercion and calling young farmers "cowards" if they didn't enlist? So much for separation of church and state.This movie was lovingly photographed. It made me want to move to Scotland.
Raven-1969
Firelight, swells of the North Sea, hayfields, rain, a wedding dinner by candlelight, mist, the morning sun, green mountains, Scottish song, clothing fashions from a hundred years ago and the writing of Lewis Grassic Gibbon, are brought to life. It is said that nothing but the land endures, yet there is something about each of these characters – good and bad - that endures too. Intriguing characters include a sensual, pretty and bright young woman who loves the landscape and dreams of a better life, a strict and abusive farm family patriarch in desperate need of an intervention and anger management classes, and a young man turned bitter and cowardly by war and violence. The story is told mostly through the eyes of the young woman, Chris, as she grows and experiences hardships as well as bliss. It is amazing to witness her transformations through the people she comes in contact with, the land and the emotions she feels. Kindness, love, nature and light endure when we let them. Anger, violence and hatred make them the lovelier for that.The director is obviously extremely experienced and capable at such historic United Kingdom stories. He invigorates the senses in sight and sound, and we even almost feel the emotions of the characters and smell the hay, mist and mud. I suppose this is the "memory realism" style I read about. Remarkably, and appropriately to the themes of the story, Davies does not shy away from the rawness of anger, sex, nudity and violence. He is equally adept at bringing out the beauty of the story as well as its darkness. There is exemplary acting here especially by the leads, yet with the exception of the one who played Ewan (each of his moods seemed the same to me). For those few who can differentiate between the sectors of Scotland, the film takes place in Northeast Scotland. The excitement of another "Florida premiere" was palpable (LOL!) at this 2016 Miami International Film Festival screening.
AD
