Best movie of this year hands down!

Simply A Masterpiece

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

As I watched this movie I grew sadder with each passing minute. Not because the movie was sad but because this movie was someone's baby and it is never pleasant to see someone's dreams and hard work come to nought. I would like to say this is a great movie. Failing that I would like to say it is a good movie. However I cannot do this, because it is not. This is not so much a movie but a set of fragments, literally EVERY one of which either makes no sense, is totally and unrealistically contrived, overacted, irrelevant, and in many cases all of the above. We have a classroom scene in which someone says "oh,oh,oh butin", very interesting I'm sure but...why? We have two girls walking along a path, saying ridiculous things and displaying lesbian tendencies but why? After this we never see one of these girls again. We have a girl called Christine - annoyingly called by everyone "Chris" – surely a nickname that would only used by her family and a few close friends. This "Chris" has a brother with whom she seems to have a relationship that is close enough to be disturbing. For no apparent reason the brother starts spouting nonsense rhymes which include the work "Jehovah". Apparently his father has been stalking him for he is waiting outside the door eavesdropping and beats the living daylights out of the son for using the Lord's name in vain. The father ostentatiously cleans his gun, so we know that we can expect a scene involving this. Sure enough in the next scene, the son, again for reasons which are not clear, against all advice, uses said gun and once again gets the living daylights beaten out of him by his Father. Subsequently we see the brother half naked, cradled in his sister's arms, as of course you do in these circumstances. The marks on the son's back are completely inconsistent with the punishment he has received, and as regular as graph paper. The father gets a new harvester and although presumably the arrival of such an expensive, large and unusual piece of equipment must surely have been the talk of the community, apparently the son is only aware of it once it is put into action. Despite the wonder of this device neither father nor son is in the least bit interested in its results. Harvesting the cut wheat apparently consists of picking it up and putting it down again a few feet away. A worker randomly arrives from nowhere and the father is he hires him immediately when just a minute before he didn't need anyone. Chris delivers said worker a meal and he fondles her legs, with Chris just standing there seemingly enjoying it. What does this mean? Next up we have a gratuitous look at Chris admiring her nude self in the mirror – ah, proving what? We never see the worker again. There is a storm, simulated by what appears to be a couple of sparklers tied to some fence posts. Chris goes out to look after the horses. For reasons difficult to explain the neighbours are also out shouting "Chris, Chris", as you do in a storm. Fast forward, Chris gets married. There is a brief and pointless appearance by a Miss Melon who duly leaves having contributed nothing. One night the father in law suddenly arrives in uniform – apparently they give these to you as soon as you enlist. In what seems to be an outtake of village of the dammed we see scores of people wandering through the cornfields to get to church. By and by the husband also suddenly walks out of the house to enlist. Sometime later he just as suddenly arrives back a completely different person, I mean a COMPLETELY different person. Perhaps this is supposed to mean something but I don't know what. In due course he leaves again. Chris gets a message saying her husband has been killed and falls about crying "they're lying" about 100 times. We see the husband in flashback before he is shot for desertion. Miraculously his original personality has returned and almost as miraculously in time of war his father is there to visit him. Outside deserters are getting shot one after the other in some sort of assembly line when in actuality only 400 people deserters were shot in the entire course of the war. The husband is shot by 4 riflemen, as opposed to the usual dozen, and what's more they do so with no orders. Meanwhile back at home Chris is talking to her husband's shirt, yes that's right TALKING TO HIS SHIRT, saying that she understands, which is just as well because none of the audience do. Stringing together all these meaningless fragments of nothing we have a turgid narration that seems as it was written by a "random angst generator" on a computer. I don't think I have ever heard so much rubbish and cod-philosophy in my life - the only message I got out of it is that apparently "Chris is the land", very deep I am sure. None of the characters are the least bit interesting or likable. I could care less about any of the characters – Chris, the father, the mother, the brother, the husband – none of whom resemble, act like, talk like, think like, any rational human being I have ever met. And what does it all mean? Is there actually a point? War is Hell? Life in Scotland in the 1910's was Hell? Being a woman is Hell? Men are pigs? It is very sad that so much effort and care resulted in such a poor film. I truly hope the makers were pleased with the results but to me it is ultimately one long facade behind which lurks precisely nothing.

This movie is the most artistically excellent film I've ever seen. The frames in this movie could be stopped and transferred to oil on canvas and mounted in an art museum. The photography was flawless as were the performances. (My one criticism was Ewan's total change of personality when he came home on furlough. You'd think he would be eager to be with his loving wife -- but he went off his head and raped her. Their idyllic life was torn apart.)Also -- who was that twit in the pulpit pushing political coercion and calling young farmers "cowards" if they didn't enlist? So much for separation of church and state.This movie was lovingly photographed. It made me want to move to Scotland.

The movie makers decided to take Lewis Grassic Gibbon's novel about Chrissie and the impact of WW1 on the whole community and turn it into a story about one couple. The novel already creates an insular, boxed in feeling of one community following old Scots' ways and takes just one corner of the box. It makes the story claustrophobic. We lose the impact of loving all the ancillary characters like Chae and Long Rob, so their fates don't become important to us- it is just an after thought comment in the film. And the beautiful concluding speech by the pastor under the ancient stones is not in the film, so the whole idea of WHOSE Sunset Song it is does not strike us. The film is beautiful and lead actors good, but the poor decisions on how to frame the story line made it ultimately a disappointment if like me, you love this novel. The old Masterpiece Theatre version was superior.

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.