Shadows in the Sun

As a subtitler I watch around a dozen films a week, so when I started subtitling 'Shadows in the Sun' for TV, it was simply another 'job' that I had to finish by teatime. But as the film progressed, I found it utterly engrossing, subtle, nicely shot, and with a wonderful sense of place.

There are plenty of films that are set amid striking scenery, but they can often feel rather flat, as if the landscape is nothing more than a 2D backdrop. Not so with this film: you really feel like you're there, right in the middle of rural Norfolk. The air seems to hang thick with echoes of old conversations, poems read aloud, and the coos of woodpigeons. Shadows in the Sun really nails a certain, quiet sense of Englishness: something more usually steamrollered to a pulp by Love Actually et al.