Tag Archives: World War I

Journey’s End (2017)

15 Friday Feb 2019

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D: Saul Dibb / 107m

Cast: Sam Claflin, Asa Butterfield, Paul Bettany, Toby Jones, Stephen Graham, Tom Sturridge, Robert Glenister, Miles Jupp, Rupert Wickham

March 1918, Northern France. With rumours growing of a German push to break the deadlock that currently exists, the British have decided that each company should spend six days of every month on the Front Line. On the eighteenth it’s the turn of Company C, led by Captain Stanhope (Claflin). Once at the trenches, Stanhope and his second in command, Lieutenant Osborne (Betttany), discover that they are low on weapons, and even lower on supplies. The arrival of Second Lieutenant Ralegh (Butterfield), who was at school with Stanhope (albeit three years below him), doesn’t aid matters as Stanhope has taken to heavy drinking as a way of dealing with the stress of being in command, and he doesn’t want Ralegh writing home about him (Stanhope is in a relationship with Ralegh’s sister, Margaret). This causes a rift between them that is further abrogated when a raid is required and Ralegh returns alive, though others don’t. With the German offensive revealed to be taking place on the twenty-first, and Company C being tasked with holding the line, Stanhope and his men prepare themselves for the worst…

The fifth screen adaptation of R.C. Sherriff’s play of the same name, Journey’s End relies heavily on its creator’s theatrical inspirations and presents much of the action as if this was a filmed stage production. This isn’t a bad thing on the whole, as it keeps the material confined in physical terms, making any escape from the officer’s quarters (where most of the movie takes place) or the front line trenches, entirely welcome, even though it’s likely to be fleeting. Focusing instead on the psychological damage suffered by Captain Stanhope and its effects on the officers around him, their quarters are another battleground for the group to navigate. Osborne, known as “Uncle” to the other men, is forbearing and supportive, but not so forgiving when Stanhope acts in bad faith, as when he plans to read, and censor if necessary, Ralegh’s letters home. Trotter (Graham) is the brunt of Stanhope’s unkind jokes but seems inured to them, while Hibbert (Sturridge) has his own struggles, and tries to avoid fighting by claiming an illness. Ralegh has a bad case of hero worship, and has a hard time getting to grips with a much different Stanhope than the one he knew in school.  As the fateful day approaches, Stanhope’s anger and self-loathing at the man he’s become is displayed in markedly different ways, and with markedly different results.

By retaining the close quarters and intense emotional outbursts that Stanhope has no choice but to express, Simon Reade’s anxiety-inducing screenplay and Saul Dibb’s assured direction maintain a tight grip on the narrative, and make this adaptation genuinely affecting. Any melodramatics are kept to a minimum, and the claustrophobic setting adds its own power to the mix, but its the performances that elevate the familiarity of the material and make it impactful. Claflin takes Stanhope’s self-hatred and sense of duty and makes them two sides of a divided character whose commitment is never in doubt even as he spirals ever further towards self-destruction. Butterfield as Ralegh is the perfect embodiment of innocence informed by inexperience and boyish exuberance, while Bettany is quiet and contemplative, yet just as aware that a soldier can only count on so much luck to survive the absurdities thrown up by war (and so it proves). Even down to the supporting roles, the movie is perfectly cast (Jones is particularly memorable as the dyspeptic cook, Mason), so that when the raid, and then the offensive, actually put them at risk, the movie has succeeded in making the viewer care about them. The story may not be new any more, but this is one version that succeeds by acknowledging this and relying on Sherriff’s original themes to get its message across – and it does so with passion and conviction.

Rating: 8/10 – with a necessarily gloomy visual style to support the gravity of the characters’ situation, Journey’s End isn’t interested in the politics of the era, or the stupidity of the military top brass (though these are accepted), but in the hopes and fears, and the camaraderie, of the men who fought so bravely; fatalistic and yet strangely optimistic as well, this is affecting and sincere, and a powerful reminder – if it were needed – that in war the idea of “winners” is patently, and utterly absurd.

They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)

16 Tuesday Oct 2018

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D: Peter Jackson / 99m

Four years ago, Peter Jackson was approached by the 14-18-Now organisation to make a thirty minute documentary on the First World War to mark its hundredth anniversary. The only proviso was that he use archival footage held at London’s Imperial War Museum. Jackson readily agreed but realised that the surviving footage would need to be restored in order to present the best possible version of the movie he was going to make. In the end this meant a long, painstaking process that involved cleaning up the material, correcting a variety of frame rates to today’s standard of twenty-four frames a second, and then both colourising it and converting it into 3D. With recordings of World War I veterans conducted by the BBC during the Sixties making up the soundtrack, They Shall Not Grow Old (a transposition of the quote by Laurence Binyan), is a stunningly immersive and emotive experience that brings the so-called “Great War” to life in a way that has never been seen before. The application of modern technology gives the documentary an immediacy that’s both powerful and, in places, quite profound. And thankfully, what was meant to be a thirty minute piece, has been expanded to nearly a hundred minutes; and Jackson doesn’t waste a single one of them.

The movie doesn’t begin with this new, remastered footage. Instead, we see old, damaged images of servicemen walking past a static camera, and it’s a little jerky, and either a little faded or too bright, but it’s what we’re used to seeing. But as the movie progresses, the images begin to improve. Black and white gives way to colour, the 3D becomes sharper and more pronounced (though without becoming distracting), and the footage itself takes on more and more detail. What emerges is a compelling visual exploration of a serviceman’s life on the battlefield, when fighting and at rest, and from the time war was declared and men – and especially teenagers – rushed to take up arms, to the Armistice and the problems they faced when they returned home. Jackson tells the story of the war from the perspective of the British (naturally), but also makes room for the Germans, and the similarities between the men who fought on both sides. There’s footage of British and German medics working side by side to save the injured and the dying, and examples of the lack of ill will shown to German captives. Jackson makes the point very succinctly: neither side knew why they were fighting, and were sympathetic towards, and respectful of, each other.

But while the visuals are the movie’s “main attraction” as it were (and rightly so), where Jackson truly excels is in the decision to use those recordings from the BBC. So much detail is present in these remembrances that almost every single one of them sheds light on the emotions and feelings and opinions of those who fought. These voices from the past vividly illustrate the hopes and fears that were felt at the time, and they remind us that initially, many thought the war would be an adventure. There’s humour too, a reminder that these men couldn’t allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the nature of their situation in the trenches. And then, as if these recollections aren’t enough, Jackson goes one step further: he gives voices to the men in the archival footage through the use of lip reading experts who examined the footage and worked out what was being said. Now this footage comes complete with an audio track that would never have been heard otherwise. It’s disorientating at first, but the effect is incredible: combined with the colour and the increased detail of the image, it’s as if we’re seeing contemporary footage, and not imagery that’s a hundred years old. Jackson has done something extraordinary: he’s made the past look and sound as real as the present.

Rating: 9/10 – for some, this may prove to be Peter Jackson’s finest work (yes, even better than The Lord of the Rings trilogy), and on many levels it is; a triumph of technology plus a philosophical approach to the material that focuses on the men who fought rather than the reasons for their fighting, this is hugely impressive, and a powerful reminder of the human ability to endure and/or overcome the worst of adversities.

The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017)

11 Monday Jun 2018

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D: Joseph Ruben / 110m

Cast: Michiel Huisman, Hera Hilmar, Josh Hartnett, Ben Kingsley, Haluk Bilginer, Affif Ben Badra, Paul Barrett, Jessica Turner

It’s 1914, and in Philadelphia, Lillie Rowe (Hilmar), the daughter of well-to-do society parents is trying to make her way in the world as a nurse. It’s not easy, what with class and racial prejudice making it more and more difficult to treat those needing treatment, so when she meets Dr Jude Gresham (Hartnett) at one of her parents’ soirées, and learns he works at a hospital in a remote part of Turkey that offers medical aid to anyone who needs it, Christian or Muslim, she decides to take a truck full of medical supplies there all by herself. Needing a military escort, Lillie is guided to the hospital by Lieutenant Ismail Veli (Huisman), who is stationed at a nearby garrison. They develop romantic feelings for each other, despite the difference in their faiths, and despite the objections of Gresham (who loves Lillie himself), and the advice of the hospital’s founder, Dr Garrett Woodruff (Kingsley). When World War I breaks out, their romance is put under further pressure thanks to the political upheavals the war brings, and the difficulty in keeping the hospital a neutral place for all…

Despite the tumultuous events that occurred during the period it covers, The Ottoman Lieutenant is largely unconcerned with such minor details as the Armenian genocide that began in 1915, or in exploring too closely the religious, political, ethnic and historical realities of the time. Instead, it sidesteps these issues (for the most part) in order to focus on one of the most excruciatingly bland three-way romances seen in quite some time. If you’re expecting the movie to be a grand, sweeping romantic drama set against a turbulent backdrop, and full of passion and fire, then be prepared: it’s not that kind of movie, and the combination of Jeff Stockwell’s anodyne screenplay, Joseph Ruben’s pedestrian direction, and three tired-from-the-word-go performances by Huisman, Hilmar and Hartnett, ensure that the movie never gets out of the starting gate. And that’s without Geoff Zanelli’s by-the-numbers score, and cinematography by Daniel Aranyó that only seems to fizz when depicting the beautiful Turkish countryside; any interiors appear drab and unappealingly flat in their presentation. Apparently, the movie was given a limited release in December 2016 to allow it to qualify for Oscar consideration. If so, the obvious question is: why?

All round, it’s a woeful lump of a movie, uninspired, straining for momentum and merit, and unable to raise any interest especially when its lacklustre love story is pushed to the forefront. It’s hard to care about Veli and Lillie when their love affair is played out with all the perfunctory flair of a dismal soap opera, and it’s worse that neither Huisman or Hilmar seem interested in doing anything more than going through the (e)motions (there’s certainly no chemistry between them). Hartnett is no better, which means that, performance-wise, it’s only Kingsley who appears to be putting any effort in. Making more out of his character, and some truly awful dialogue, than his three co-stars put together, Kingsley is the movie’s sole saving grace; without him it would be even more tortuous. Even when the movie throws in a couple of action sequences, the viewer’s pulse is unlikely to quicken, and any tension is dismissed early on when it becomes obvious that, one character aside, no one is in any real danger from the Turks, the Russians, or anyone else – though the viewer is at risk of succumbing to terminal lethargy. Best advice: if you have to make one trip to Turkey this year, make sure it isn’t this one.

Rating: 3/10 – what was probably intended to be a good old-fashioned romantic adventure yarn with a plucky heroine and a dashing suitor, is instead the opposite: trite, run-of-the-mill, and poorly executed; when it’s not addressing the issues of the period (which is most of its running time), The Ottoman Lieutenant remains firmly in dramatic limbo, unable to rouse itself beyond the mundane and the banal.

Wonder Woman (2017)

02 Friday Jun 2017

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D: Patty Jenkins / 141m

Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Saïd Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner, Eugene Brave Rock, Lucy Davis, Elena Anaya, Lilly Aspell

On the hidden island of Themyscira live the Amazons, a fierce warrior tribe of women whose presence in the world has been kept from the rest of mankind by the wishes of Zeus. The only child on the island is Diana (Aspell), the daughter of Queen Hippolyta (Nielsen). Diana is precocious, challenging, disobedient, and determined to become a warrior like the rest of the Amazons, but her mother forbids it. Hippolyta’s sister, Antiope (Wright), trains Diana in secret, though, and she grows into a young woman (Gadot) to be reckoned with: the quickest, most agile, most determined Amazon of them all. With her fighting skills honed under the stewardship of Antiope, Diana finds she lacks a clear purpose in life, until one day the shield keeping the island hidden is penetrated by a plane that crashes into the sea. Diana rescues the lone pilot, Steve Trevor (Pine), who tells the Amazons of “a war to end to all wars”, and who provides all the reason Diana needs to leave the island and seek her destiny (once she leaves she can never return).

The pair travel to London where Trevor alerts the British High Command – led by Sir Patrick Morgan (Thewlis) – to a plot by Germany’s General Ludendorff (Huston) to end the War by use of the most deadliest form of mustard gas yet created. Forced to go it alone, Trevor recruits three old friends – would-be actor Sameer (Taghmaoui), sharpshooter Charlie (Bremner), smuggler the Chief (Brave Rock) – and with Diana, travels to the Belgian Front, where Ludendorff and his chief scientist, Dr Maru (Anaya), are in the process of preparing their new weapon to be used for the first (and they hope, last) time in the War. But Diana has no intention of letting them succeed in their plan, and convinced that Ludendorff is the modern incarnation of Ares, the disgraced God of War, she takes the fight to the Germans, and in the process learns something about herself that has been hidden from her all her life…

The question everyone is asking is an easy one to answer. The question is, is Wonder Woman the best DC Extended Universe movie to date? And the easy answer is Yes, it is. But that’s like saying, if I have one leg shorter than the other, and I have an operation to correct this, will I be better able to walk? Again, the answer is Yes, of course. And so it goes with Wonder Woman, a movie that provides a sharp upturn in quality in relation to its predecessors – Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad (2016) – but which still embraces many of the issues and problems that have plagued those same DCEU productions.

It’s yet another movie where the tone is so earnest and so po-faced that when the script does make an attempt at humour, it’s the same as when Garland Greene says of Billy Bedlam in Con Air (1997): “he’s so angry moments of levity actually cause him pain; gives him headaches. Happiness, for that gentleman, hurts.” The humour is there, tucked away in odd places, but it never feels like an integral part of the overall tone and feel of the movie. It’s as if Allan Heinberg’s script was accused of being too heavy, and was charged with including moments of levity as a direct consequence. What this means in practice is that the movie rarely feels comfortable when it’s tasked with being funny, and seems to breathe a sigh of relief when it can move on and concentrate on providing audiences with an industrious trek through the land of superhero clichés.

As an origin story, it’s akin to the first Thor movie, in that it introduces us to a realm built on myth and legend, and after a suitable period, hijacks the central character and thrusts them into the “real” world, with all its problems and rewards. Themyscira is a first for the DC Extended Universe, a beautifully realised paradise that features sun-dappled buildings, verdant fields, and the healthy glow of bronze and gold. Its relentlessly blue skies stretch as far as the eye can see, and the azure waters of the sea are dazzling. But once the island of Themyscira is left behind, the movie defaults to the muted colour palette and downplayed visual aesthetic that governs all the movies in the DC Extended Universe. Whether we’re in London or the battle-torn Belgian countryside, the movie does its best to be all gloomy backdrop and sombre foreground. It all fits in with the earnest, dramatic nature of the material, but as a visual statement it’s less than satisfying and helps to drain some of the life from the movie as a whole.

Where the movie does score more highly is in its attention to the horrors of life on the Western Front, and the effects of warfare on the local populace. But even that acknowledgment is over quickly so as to facilitate the next action sequence (which unfortunately features the kind of jerky CGI gymnastics from Wonder Woman that you’d be forgiven for thinking wouldn’t be attempted anymore in a movie costing $149 million and released in 2017). There are other nods to the horrors of war – Charlie’s PTSD, musings on the terrible things that man can inflict on his fellow man – but while it’s good to see them addressed – however briefly – it’s as near to depth as the movie gets, and they seem shoehorned into the main storyline rather than arising naturally from it. Diana’s obsession with hunting down Ares also gives rise to further arguments about the nature of war and man’s predilection towards it, but these are largely spurious and serve only to weigh down a final showdown between Diana and Ares that quickly descends into yet another dispiriting bout of disaster porn theatrics.

As the 5000 year old Amazon princess, Gadot builds on her appearance in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and proves that the praise she received in that movie wasn’t just a result of her standing out against its poor structure, lacklustre script, and wayward direction. There are some roles that can only be played by certain actors or actresses, and Gadot owns the part in a way that the likes of Sandra Bullock, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Beyoncé Knowles – all considered for the role in the past – would find incredibly difficult to match or improve upon. Elsewhere, Gadot isn’t the most convincing of actresses, but here she gives a compelling, intuitive performance that stretches her skills as an actress but does so in a way that marks her out – in the DC Extended Universe at least – as the character to look out for. She’s ably supported by Pine who reins in his usual cocky charm; Huston as yet another less than memorable villain; Thewlis as the politician who may or may not be all that he seems; and Wright as Diana’s strong-willed aunt. However, if anyone in the supporting cast has to be picked out, it’s Bremner, who injects some much needed energy into his scenes and who makes Charlie possibly the most well rounded character in the whole movie.

Much has been made of Patty Jenkins being the first female director of a superhero movie featuring a female character as its lead, and Jenkins does do a decent enough job of pushing against the narrow confines of a DC superhero movie. But though she does manage to incorporate some elements of feminism into the story, there aren’t enough to make the movie into something more relevant than it is, and it’s curiously flimsy as an example of female empowerment. This is still, and despite the presence of Wonder Woman herself, a Boys’ Own adventure that could have featured any number of superheroes as its lead protagonist. It gets full marks for its period setting (something that was avoided for a long time before production finally began), but the movie takes too long in getting its audience from London to the Front, takes too much time in attempting to flesh out characters that don’t need fleshing out, and provides enough exposition to deaden the senses more effectively than Dr Maru’s poison gas. A small-scale triumph, then, and a definite improvement on the movies already mentioned above, but there’s still a long way to go before DC and Warner Bros. overcome the same problems they seem incapable – at present – of recognising and prevailing over.

Rating: 6/10 – a movie that starts out strongly (much in the way that Suicide Squad did), Wonder Woman seems set on delivering on the promise it showed in its trailers, and the advance word from preview screenings, but it soon falters and falls prey to the apparently carved-in-stone requirements of the DC Extended Universe; bold and confident in places, yet haphazard and stumbling in others, it’s a movie that surprises more than it dismays, but when it does dismay the effect is, unfortunately, far more noticeable, and has far more repercussions.

Mini-Review: The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015)

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

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D: Matthew Brown / 108m

Cast: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Devika Bhise, Toby Jones, Jeremy Northam, Kevin McNally, Richard Johnson, Anthony Calf, Raghuvir Joshi, Stephen Fry

Madras, India, 1914. Humble clerk Srinivasa Ramanujan (Patel) has a special affinity for mathematics; he can see formulas in his head, and he can write them down without having to pause or check what he’s writing. Spurred on by his employer, he writes to the British mathematician, and professor at Trinity College, Cambridge, G.H. Hardy (Irons). Hardy is impressed enough to pay for Ramanujan’s passage to England, and with a promise of ensuring the young Indian’s work is published. Once at the college however, Ramanujan finds himself pressed to explain just how his formulas work. Hardy needs him to provide “proofs” – how he works things out – but at first it’s an alien concept that Ramanujan fights against.

Back in Madras, Ramanujan’s wife, Janaki (Bhise) is reliant on his letters for news of when she can travel to be with him. But his jealous mother, Narasimha (Joshi), hides his letters and confiscates hers. In England, his wife’s apparent silence adds to his further woes: experiencing institutionalised racism, the delays in being published, and the onset of tuberculosis. As he struggles to meet the demands that Hardy imposes, Ramanujan begins to feel despair at the thought that all his theories and formulas will die with him. It’s only when he and Hardy challenge another member of the faculty, Major MacMahon (McNally), over partitions, that his work begins to be recognised, and his position as a gifted mathematician is guaranteed.

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A true story about a most remarkable man, The Man Who Knew Infinity is a fairly standard biopic that benefits greatly from the participation of Patel and Irons, both of whom give strong, inspiring performances, and from the work of production designer Luciana Arrighi Rajeevan, who recreates the period covering World War I with style and attention to detail. Beyond this, though, this is very much a standard tale of one remarkable man’s struggle to be heard and understood against an environment that appears unable to entertain original thought. There are many such stories throughout history, and many have been into serviceable movies, and while The Man Who Knew Infinity is certainly an interesting story, it’s too similar to many other stories to have much of an impact.

Partly this is due to the period of time over which the movie takes place – six years – which leaves the narrative necessarily fragmented. As a result, Ramanujan’s story feels incomplete, with too many scenes that are replays of earlier ones (Hardy’s insistence on proofs is played out on several occasions). The movie isn’t too subtle in depicting the racism of the time, doling out exactly the kind of scenes you’d expect to see in a movie such as this – Ramanujan is verbally abused, physically assaulted, and generally despised by the majority of the teaching staff – and there’s the classic movie moment where after a number of scenes where Ramanujan is prone to coughing fits, he finally coughs up blood into a handkerchief. Watching the movie, you can practically predict every beat of the narrative, and every advance in the material. But on a basic level it remains entirely watchable – just don’t expect too much from it.

Rating: 6/10 – an inspiring tale told with a minimum of passion, The Man Who Knew Infinity relies on a number of biopic clichés in telling its story, and in doing so, dulls the drama inherent in Ramanujan’s life; boasting two clever, intelligent central performances, and often glorious cinematography by Larry Smith, the movie feels as if it was aiming for more, but didn’t quite have the resources to achieve it – but at least it tried.

Sunset Song (2015)

27 Sunday Dec 2015

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Sunset Song poster

D: Terence Davies / 135m

Cast: Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan, Kevin Guthrie, Jack Greenlees, Daniela Nardini, Ian Pirie, Douglas Rankine

Terence Davies is not one of the UK’s most prolific movie makers, but he is one who is highly regarded and he’s been justly lauded over the years for movies such as Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The House of Mirth (2000). He’s a director who chooses his projects with great care, and he invests a lot of time and effort in getting things right. Sunset Song, an adaptation of the classic novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, has taken fifteen years to reach our screens, and shows Davies focusing on the lives of a small farming family on the eve of World War I.

The main character is Chris Guthrie (Deyn), the eldest daughter of John (Mullan) and Jean (Nardini). She has her work on the farm to occupy her, but she has few plans for her own future, despite being well educated and with an innate sense of the world around her (even if she hasn’t travelled far enough to see it). Her father is a hard, pitiless man who controls the farm and his family with a harshness that tips over into brutality when he feels it necessary. As well as Chris, he has a son, Will, and two younger children, Dod and Alec. John and Will clash continually, and Chris tries to act as peacekeeper but her father’s attitude makes it difficult.

Sunset Song - scene1

When Jean discovers she is pregnant again, it proves too much for her, and the action she takes to avoid childbirth leads to Dod and Alec being sent to live with their aunt and uncle. Tensions and tempers flare up as John and Will clash ever more violently, and so much acrimony arises that Will makes the decision to emigrate to South America. Left on her own with her father, Chris has no choice but to fill both her brother’s and her mother’s shoes, and run the household as well as look after parts of the farm. She and her father have an uneasy relationship, and it’s made harder when he suffers a stroke that leaves him bedridden. Subsequently she finds herself in charge of the farm, and with a difficult decision to make: sell up or manage the farm herself.

She chooses the latter, and with help from some of her neighbours and old friends of her father’s, Chris finds she has a natural flair for farm management, and she comes to realise just how much she loves the life she leads. Wooed by a young farmer called Ewan Tavendale (Guthrie), Chris eventually marries him and they have a son. But World War I arrives and Ewan goes off to fight in France. Chris waits anxiously for his return but when he does he’s a changed man: violent, angry and aggressive. Fearing the consequences for their marriage if he’s the same when the war ends, Chris is left with yet another difficult decision to make.

If you’re adapting a classic novel then it makes sense to stick closely to the novel’s structure and themes, and with Sunset Song, Davies has done exactly that. The farm, Blawearie, is surrounded by rolling hills and (in summer at least) some very beautiful meadowland, but it’s an old farm, with few modern appliances or signs of mechanical progress to show that John is moving forward with the times. Chris and Will can see the value of these modernisations but their father is something of a grim traditionalist, holding out against the inevitability of change. It’s his way of staying in control, even if ultimately, it’s to his, and the farm’s, detriment.

Sunset Song - scene2

With themes of change firmly embedded in the script and foregrounding the relationships between Chris, Will, and their father, Davies is free to explore the role of women in such small communities – Chris is independent and speaks her own mind, not a commonplace for the period – as well as the way in which these small communities unite in times of need, and often in a way that is now anathema to modern ways of thinking; despite his often appalling behaviour, John is still highly regarded by his peers, and where he might be shunned today, back then he’s still a man to be respected, and helped when required.

But while the tone and the subject matter and the characters are all handled with skill and seemingly effortless dexterity, somehow Davies has managed to make Sunset Song somehow lacking, as if the story, by itself, should be enough to carry the viewer along quite comfortably. Instead, the narrative meanders at times as it tries to paint a broader picture of the small world it’s focused on. The events that occur on Blawearie Farm, while undeniably dramatic, also suffer from over-familiarity. The blinkered, brutal father figure is one we’ve seen time and again (and with Mullan in the role as well), and the character of Chris is the intelligent, brave, compassionate daughter who acts as a counterpoint to her father’s belligerence. A classic tale complete with classic characters is here transposed into a classic tale with all-too predictable character arcs.

To be fair it’s not entirely Davies’ fault. The problems are inherent in the story and the narrative, as each step of Chris’s journey to maturity and independence are threatened at every turn, and her resilience and resourcefulness is challenged each time. Davies never really finds a way to overcome these over-familiarities, and we’re left with a movie that is sumptuous to look at, and beautifully framed and realised as only Davies can devise, but also a movie that doesn’t allow itself to connect with the audience, preferring instead to tell its story at a distance. There’s never any real emotional investment made in the characters, or their trials and tribulations, and without that investment, many scenes lack the intensity needed to draw the audience in.

Sunset Song - scene3

Nevertheless, Sunset Song is still a good movie, but one that could have made more of an impact on viewers. Davies is at times a visually astonishing director, and there are several shots in the movie that are simply superb in terms of light and colour and shade and composition. His cast are uniformly excellent, with Deyn grabbing all the plaudits as Chris, giving a complex, striking performance as a young woman on the verge of achieving whatever she wants, but still retaining the insecurity that comes with being in such a momentous position. Mullan could probably play his type of role in his sleep by now, but there are few actors who can take such an objectionable character and make him recognisably, understandably human. The scenes between the two of them, though lacking the emotional charge that’s sorely needed, are still fascinating to watch for the ways in which both actors spar with each other.

There’s certainly room for this type of “heritage” movie in amongst all the over-hyped productions out there, and Davies is a movie maker we should all cherish for his ability to bring recent periods in history to life with such precision and attention to detail, but with Sunset Song he’s made a movie that only goes part way to achieving the classic status of its source novel.

Rating: 8/10 – a bracing depiction of early 20th Century Scottish farming life with terrific performances and Davies creating a fully recognisable world, Sunset Song – while missing a fair degree of passion in its telling – is still a movie with considerable merit; achingly beautiful in places, and a joy to watch if you appreciate measured, thoughtful movie making, Davies’ latest may be a tad disappointing but it’s still head and shoulders above the majority of movies out there at the moment.