England has a fine literary heritage, from Shakespeare to the Brontë sisters, from Dickens to Jane Austen, and on and on the list goes, including the likes of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Agatha Christie, John Le Carré, Clive Barker, etc, etc. Scotland has a similarly rich variety, both historically and right here and now, from Sir Walter Scott to Robert Burns, from Rankin to Rowling, Iain Banks (with or without the middle initial), Christopher Brookmyre, and many more. Unfortunately, one celebrated writer of Scottish fiction is/was Lewis Grassic Gibbon, writer of A Scots Quair, a trilogy of takes set in the North East of Scotland. Sunset Song is the first part of that trilogy, and it’s about as bleak and dull as just about anything I have ever encountered in my life. While forced to read it in high school, I once threw the book across an empty classroom in disdain, looking on in horror as it lifted upwards and knocked a glass lightshade loose, the whole thing coming down and smashing to pieces on the floor. I somehow managed to clean it up and hide the evidence, and I am only sharing this confession here as it is arguably the most interesting thing I can say about the story.
I am sure you can imagine how much I was looking forward to the film, directed and adapted into screenplay form by Terence Davies (someone who has directed other films I have very much enjoyed).
Agyness Deyn plays Chris Guthrie, a young woman loving a hard life on a Scottish farm in the early 1900s. She has a stern father (Peter Mullan) for a while, but things really seem to look up for her when she starts to receive the attention of Ewan Tavendale (played by Kevin Guthrie). But the fact that this is Sunset Song means that happiness cannot last for long. The only things that last are aching joints and muscles from hard work on the land. Och aye, ye can be sure o’ that.
It’s all nicely put together, from the script to the horribly overcast visual palette, and the cast do excellent work, particularly Deyn in the central role, giving a performance that marks her out as a formidable talent. Unfortunately, Sunset Song cannot overcome the biggest problem it has, which is the fact that it is Sunset Song. Viewed by many as an essential Scottish text, the story is so mired in an essence of noble misery, while also taking the time to wear down the strong female lead into a passive victim, that it is something I would much rather see consigned to the dustbin of history. Maybe some of the Scottish vocabulary has a pleasing ring to it, there is that, and there would seem to be a number of uncomfortable truths at the heart of things, but the messages delivered throughout never sat right with me, mainly because it all seems to be inextricably interwoven with some horribly inappropriate sense of duty and pride.
Art isn’t always just a window that we look into. It is often a mirror, and the reflection can show your baggage, it can show you a snarl while so many others are smiling. My review of Sunset Song isn’t JUST about the movie, but very few movie reviews are just about the movie. It just so happens that this work has much more attached to it, for me, and I am now at an age when I can better define the problems I have always had with the material. They are problems that the film also has, because Davies adapted the source material so well. Maybe there isn’t a way to make it into anything more palatable for me, or maybe I will return to the source material and find myself able to see a bit more in it than I ever did before. I highly doubt it, but maybe.
4/10
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