Sunset Song

I went into the movie not knowing anything about the book, the model or what should have been the proper soldiers dress. I also don't know a good accent from a bad one when it comes to Scottish.

I felt the movie was gorgeous but some scenes were dragged out too long, especially closer to the end. I felt the actress was believable and saw the characters personality was much like the film itself, slow moving and deliberate with few outbursts but when they happened they were believable.

I didn't understand the husband. Why not slog through it rather than become an a-hole? but I guess he was determined. To me this was stupid and the wife should have been angry, then forgiving, rather than understanding.

The story was a view into what it may have been like back then helping me to see real people in real tough situations but who also had God and nature to nurture them.

It is the beauty of the film that has stuck with me. I didn't know Scotland was that gorgeous.

Sunset Song is a classic Scottish novel, part of a trilogy by Lewis Grassic Gibbon and much loved by many, many people (including my wife).

I confess to having not read it, so had no particular expectations when approaching this movie which happens to have been made possible by two of my friends, Bob Last and Ginnie Atkinson.

It will divide audiences because the pace is slow.

Glacial.

But I loved it.

Much media attention has focused on the casting of supermodel come actor Agyness Deyn (completely contrived name) as a Mancunian playing a seminal Scottish role but I have to say I liked her performance, and her accent. The scene in which she learns of her husband's war news is particularly well acted.

Of course this movie is about Terence Davies. He makes very few but when he does they tend to be statements about British life and, for me, this is another great entry in his canon of work.

Davies could have made a feminist statement through Deyn's character, had she been more assertive, but he resists the temptation and instead reflects the male dominance of relationships in the early 20th century (leading up to and including the first world war).

Two and a bit hours, with zero action, and not much dialogue can't be most people's cup of tea (much has been made of the regular return to a certain corn field but, you know what, I didn't care).

It is a languid and lovely observation of a lifestyle that is long past and male dominated.

Special mentions for the ever brilliant Peter Mullan (a beastly father) and a great performance by Kevin Guthrie as the husband of the central character.

I feel pity for those who have negatively reviewed this film from the point of where some of the scenic shots were or criticised the dialogue etc. I had heard the book read and the story acted on radio more than once in the past so much was familiar. I saw this in the Screen Machine (a mobile cinema which tours the Scottish Highlands and Islands). It was almost full with perhaps 75-80 there and I knew most of them so could judge their reactions and join in the conversation on the way out. For 2+ hours no-one moved - not even the handful of folk from the supposed area in Aberdeen-shire. Afterwards most felt like I did - emotionally drained. Sunset Song is not about the scenery, nor whether there were details that one or another felt weren't quite right. This was a reality check in the way in which poor country folk lived in the early part of the 20th century. It was about treating women as chattels and while I could have imagined or read about that, this was so graphic it was breathtaking. It wasn't Downton Abbey; it wasn't a Bond film but it was visually stunning and completely thought-provoking. I can't imagine anyone with a soul not being left with both a feeling of privilege to have seen it and humility that our own kin in the past lived this way. As for Agyness Deyn - amazing. Of course the accent wasn't flawless but it didn't matter. This was a brilliant and sensitive performance.

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.

Is this a masterpiece ? I really have no idea, but I sense that it might be. The filming is perfect, and the lead actress incredibly good. I have not read the book upon which it is based, and to be honest I have no desire to do so. Davies is a masterly director, but then again I have not much of a desire to see his films. ' The House of Mirth ' is I think his best film, and from the works I have seen of his ' The Deep Blue Sea ' is his worst. During the first half of ' Sunset Song ' I endured the cruelty of the world he was depicting, but towards the end I thought enough is enough. Overall he presents a dour view of life, shot through with a sparse amount of happiness. His vision maybe true and I have seen many depressing films that I have considered great, but as this film reached its ending I had endured enough of what I had seen. Some will unreservedly give it a 10, and there again I am not sure it does not merit that. I can only repeat; is this a masterpiece ? I do not think that I want to know simply because the physical pain and mental pain is too much to bear.