SUNSET SONG
UK, 2016, 134 minutes, Colour.
Agyness Dean, Kevin Guthrie, Peter Mullan.
Directed by Terence Davies.
British director, Terence Davies, has had a long career, acquired a very strong reputation, but has not been able to make as many films as he would like, at one stage almost 10 year absence from the screen owing to lack of financing. He has made some classics, especially Distant Voices, Still Lives, one of the most compelling and sadly harsh portraits of an English family, The Long Day Closes, a version of Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth, a powerful version of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea and a forthcoming biography of American poet, Emily Dickinson.
For this film he has gone to a novel by Lewis Grassic Gribbon, a Scottish setting, the years before World War I and into the war itself. Location filming was done in Scotland as well is in New Zealand.
One of the things to consider with Davies film is that it is more than likely to be slowly-paced, meditative with a touch of the contemplative. There is more than ample time to immerse oneself in the lives of the characters, in the atmosphere of their surroundings, to listen to what they have to say as well is to what they don’t say.
The central character of this story is Christine, Chris, a young woman, with a voice-over narrating and commenting on her story. She is played somewhat passively by Agyness Dean. She is one of five children, her farmer-brother the object of the fierce and bullying attention of her stern father (Peter Mullan doing yet another more than harsh father), two younger brothers with the birth of another baby, her mother enduring the difficult life and circumstances of her marriage and the family, it all becoming too much for her.
Chris is a reader and writer, intent on becoming a teacher but circumstances alter everything and she inherits the farm and some money from her parents. While an uncle and aunt take the young children for care, Chris remains on the farm, working very hard. There is a certain grimness about many of Davies films and this one has its moments of gloom for Chris as well.
One of the young men around the town, Ewan (Kevin Guthrie), seems a bit insignificant when we first see him but he is attracted to Chris and, eventually, she to him, a romantic union which seems to be heading for happiness.
The film gives a great deal of attention to life in Scotland, the times, customs, work, the countryside – although it is interesting that a number of Scottish bloggers question the feel and the authenticity of some of the characters and the situations. For those of us who are not in the know, we accept the presentation of this Scottish life.
The community seems remote, outside Aberdeen, but there are rumblings of war, and eventually the war breaks out, young men volunteer, others like Ewan are committed to their farm – but the pressure of the patriotism of the time, the sending of white feathers to those who do not join up and are considered cowards, become too much for Ewan and the story assumes an extremely downbeat tone, Ewan going to war, the loneliness of Chris and her son, the effect of the close trench warfare taking some toll on Ewan. And audiences, now aware of the traumatic stress of war experience are reminded of how drastic was the action by military authorities on those who did not measure up to expectations.
The title suggests that this may not be an entirely happy film, nor is it. It is one where the filmmaker wants to re-create a world and immerse his audience in it, for both better and for worse.
1. An early 20th-century story? Pre-World? War I? The experience of World War I, in Britain, Scotland?
2. The title, wistful, sad? Sunset at the end of the day? The adaptation of a classic novel?
3. The director, his work, romantic perspectives, creation of atmosphere, meditative style?
4. The Scottish settings: the countryside, the landscapes, the flocks, the animals? Farming? The homes and interiors? School? Workplaces? Men and women in this society? Marriage? The musical score?
5. The background of the war: patriotism, hearing about the war, people appearing in uniforms, volunteering, public opinion, cowardice the sending of feathers? Ewan and his experience of war, his return, the tragic ending?
6. Christine’s story: her voice-over, her age, at home, her older brother, the other children, her mother, pregnancy, her father and his severity, yet his supporting her? Her good friend, sharing, school? Play? A more serious young woman, study, planning to be a teacher? The period and her status as a young woman?
7. The portrait of the Father, his severity, farming, hard work, beating his son and ridiculing him, whipping him and the wounds on his back? His relationship with his wife, sexual domination, the pregnancies? The Scottish patriarch, his expectations of people, of his wife? His wife, giving birth, her despair, poisoning herself and the child? The effect on her husband?
8. The consequences of her death, the aunt and uncle taking the younger children? The brother leaving and going to Canada? Chris inheriting the farm, the house, the money? The decision to stay, her farming, the detail of her life on the farm, the other workers?
9. The men of the town, workers, Ewan and the attraction? Their being together, falling in love, the wedding ceremony? Married life, love, romantic, the child?
10. The war, the friend appearing in uniform, issues of patriotism, Ewan not going, doing the farm work? The friend objecting to going to war? Receiving the feathers? Accusations of cowardice, the pressure on Ewan?
11. Ewan going to war, his returning, his becoming a harsh character, the effect of war on him, becoming a patriarchal Scottish mail? His brutal treatment of Chris, the sexual encounter
and its harshness? The effect on her?
12. His going back to the war, the news of his death, the flashback, the story of his desertion, in prison, the firing squad and the executions? His going more calmly to execution, sitting, being shot – but saying it was all for Christine? The war, his desertion, his death?
13. The end of an era? These experiences as the basis for transition to the postwar era?
