Sunset Song

[projekktor id=’24063′]

Sunset Song is a British drama written and directed by Terence Davies (The Deep Blue Sea). Based on the novel of the same name by Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon, the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and stars Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan, and Kevin Guthrie.

The film takes place during the early years of the twentieth century, with the conflicts and choices a young woman experiences reflecting the struggle between tradition and change; a struggle that continues to resonate today. Set in a rural community, Sunset Song is driven by the young heroine Chris and her intense passion for life, for the unsettling Ewan and for the unforgiving land. The First World War reaches out from afar, bringing the modern world to bear on the community in the harshest possible way, yet in a final moment of grace, Chris endures, now a woman of remarkable strength who is able to draw from the ancient land in looking to the future.

Speaking about the novel Davies says, “It is a dark and brooding novel about the Scottish peasantry, about the land in general and one family – The Guthries – in particular. They are subsistence farmers extracting a meager living from the earth. It is a novel about the power and cruelty of both family and Nature, about the enduring presence of the land and the courage of the human spirit in the face of hardship. Against this background – but of equal stature – is the story of the daughter of the family, Chris Guthrie and her evolution from schoolgirl to wife to mother to widow then finally becoming a symbol for Scotland itself.”

Sunset Song is rated 14A.