This movie is an experiment, and though not wholly successful, has moments of beauty and many of interest.
It is a combination of a documentary about John Clare's poetry, and a re-enactment of his famous "journey out of Essex," when he fled the asylum at High Beech, and walked the 80 miles back to his home in Northborough. Toby Jones plays John Clare, walking his long way home. Iain Sinclair, playing himself, follows Clare on his journey and interviews some fans of Clare on the way (Alan Moore, Simon Kövesi, and Freddie Jones. Andrew Kötting, the director himself, appears as the Straw Man, a figure from one of Clare's late poems, and surreally haunts many of the scenes.
The best aspect of the movie is the re-enactment of Clare's walk to Northborough. Clare walks the route as it appears today, in the 21st century. Highways, footpaths and power-lines litter the landscape, the paths in the forests are worn by many feet, and passers-by wonder who Toby Jones is and what the film crew are doing. At one particularly memorable moment, an older gentleman on a mobility scooter asks what the crew are doing, and when he hears they are filming Clare's journey out of Essex, points at Toby Jones and cries "That's not John Clare!"
Clare was, of course, mad at this point in his life, and Kötting cleverly evokes his insanity. CCTV cameras bristle in the trees, representing his paranoia. He wears boxing gloves around his neck, representing his delusion that he was Jack Randall, the prize fighter. There are many other examples, which I would rather not spoil.
The interviews are on the whole less successful, though they are still interesting. They are somewhat too short and ironic to be very informative, though the interviewees are well chosen, and we get some different perspectives on Clare's life and work.
There were also a number of surreal passages, which I admit I could not understand. Perhaps others could, but that is difficult for me to predict.
The camera-work is lovely. The black and white footage is atmospheric, and Kötting makes good use of drones to capture striking perspectives on the action. Toby Jones is terrific as Clare, looking as harried and footsore as Clare sounds in his famous journal of the journey. The music and sound design are creepy with moments of beauty. It all works together effectively to create a certain mood.
But the film as a whole doesn't really cohere for me.
