Chris copes, but seems embittered as she realizes her self-reliance is more important than her marriage. After his first session of training, he comes back utterly changed, his former loving self turned cruel. Ewan is convinced by his friends that he should enlist to fight in the war. She has Ewan’s child and manages the farm, yet enjoys her husband’s affection and respect.īut the film seems determined to hit us over the head with the notion that ingrained ways of life are unchangeable: especially a culture that keeps women down. It seems that Chris has indeed managed to escape the life of lovelessness and brutality that seemed to be her lot. After their elaborate wedding, paid for with part of Chris’ inheritance, the young couple seems deliriously happy, constantly kissing and enjoying daily chores. One rainy night, after Chris competently saves the flock from freezing, he proposes marriage. A young local farmer and friend of Will’s named Ewan (Kevin Guthrie) helps out at the farm. Propriety dictates she mustn’t live alone on the farm, so she hires a middle-aged woman to help cook and clean. Chris inherits the farm and feels a momentary sense of peace and empowerment.īut she yearns for companionship. Chris manages to escape his drunken advances and, after John suffers a stroke, the man declines rapidly. He sees her as his flesh and blood - he has the right to do with her as he pleases. It becomes apparent to Chris that existence with her father will be one of drudgery, danger, and sexual abuse. Brother Will leaves home, and the older twin siblings are sent to live with relatives. Her mother bears a second set of twins, but in despair kills herself and her two babies. She resists, but, in one of many scenes where Deyn’s expressive face and slender hands convey all without words, we see that she is tempted by his touch, but concerned by the possible repercussions of giving in. An itinerant laborer who asks to work for food sleeps one night in the barn he tries to seduce Chris, saying her “hot blood” is going to waste. Jean does indeed become pregnant, and the family moves to a larger farmstead called Blawearie in a scenic valley, where Chris enjoys the views even as she works tirelessly. Chris and Will form a kind of united front, listening in dismay as they overhear John forcing himself on wife Jean (Daniela Nardini) as she protests she can’t handle another pregnancy. Women’s lives are defined by men and childbearing, but there is a hope that thoughtful, strong-willed Chris might rise above this forsworn destiny.Ĭhris’ father John (the always excellent Peter Mullan) is hard-working but harsh, and beats eldest son Will (Jack Greenlees) for perceived slights. The film chronicles a decade in her life, from adolescence through young adulthood, focusing on the challenges faced by rural Scottish women who were expected to do men’s bidding in the kitchen and bedroom. Chris Guthrie (played by Agyness Deyn in an impressive breakout performance) is the eldest daughter of a rural farming family. Terence Davies’ lush adaptation of a 1932 novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon is an ambitious coming of age film, set in Scotland just prior to World War I. At Kendall Square Cinema, Cambridge, MA Agyness Deyn as Chris Guthrie in “Sunset Song.” Photo: courtesy of Luxembourg Film Festival. It is director Terence Davies’ love letter to a lost past, but also a memoir of heartbreak and hope. I wanted to like Sunset Song, steeped as it is in Scottish history and scenery.
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