Sunset Song (2015) User Reviews

I like it

[wbotanica · 7/10 · 7 April 2016]

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.

Quiet and Tough Emotions

[iquine · 7/10 · 26 September 2017]

(Flash Review)

Taking place in the early 1900's in Scotland, the story follows the challenges of a farmer woman from her youth to young adult and the dramatic challenges placed in front of her. How does she and her brother deal with a physical and an emotionally abusive father as he mistreats them and his wife? How she takes control of her life when she finds prosperity and love? And later when war comes to their land, how will she handle the situation her new husband is placed in and the effects on him and their family? This film is told at a properly quiet pace for the period and culture. With its measured pace, it still delivers many dramatic and emotional moments with the help of stunning cinematography that really punctuates the scenes. While subdued, the actors wear their emotions with a raw passion. Overall, this is a solid emotionally dramatic period piece with a barrage of painterly cinematic scenes.

Disjointed, but succeeds despite that

[euroGary · 7/10 · 9 December 2015]

The rolling green hills and fields full of shimmering golden wheat looked so nice in 'Sunset Song'; "Ah", I thought, "The Scottish countryside is lovely." Then I read in the end credits that some of this British/Luxembourg co-production was shot on location in New Zealand. Oh. Possibly I was admiring Kiwi hills instead...

Anyway. The setting is agricultural Scotland in the early Twentieth Century, and the main character is Chris (Agyness Deyn), a teenager who outshines her classmates (not surprisingly as she looks considerably older than most of them) and who dreams of being a teacher. She lives on the family farm with her overly-controlling father (Peter Mullan), who routinely beats her brother in-between making pregnant his wife (Daniela Nardini, who doesn't seem to have had a good meaty role in years). The story, based on a famous Scottish novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, follows Chris through several years of happiness, motherhood and bereavement.

Mullan does his usual one-note bullying schtick, although, to be fair, the script allows him little scope for anything else. As Chris, Deyn is competent, if the viewer ignores one or two flatly-delivered lines - perhaps she was concentrating on her accent (and why hire an English actress to play a Scotswoman anyway? Were all the Scottish actresses busy? It's not as if Deyn is a Winslet-like big name who is going to put bums on seats).

As for the story, it seems to lurch from one scenario to another, with little to connect it all up. It's possible some vital scenes were left on the cutting-room floor (for instance, any explanation of why Chris' happy, worshipful husband is transformed into a rampaging sexist monster after what the film suggests is merely army training which, I should think, would last only a few months, not the five or six years the ageing of his son seems to suggest!) Characters wander into the story then disappear with no explanation (eg: Chris' son and the man who helps her on the farm while her husband is away). It all gives the film a strangely disjointed feel...

... but somehow the end result is greater than the sum of its parts: this is an enjoyable production. Deyn makes a personable heroine and the story has a comforting predictability. The film seems shorter than its 135 minute running time - and with films as with business meetings, what greater praise could there be?

beautiful

[Kirpianuscus · 3 October 2021]

I do not know the trilogy of Lewis Grassic Gibbon. But I love this film for the flavors, for landscapes, for memories about other Scotish novels atmosphere, for bitterness and beautiful seeds of hope. Good acting, powerful message, wise perspective about life, a gentle feminist manifesto and one of films like a cold tea cup. Beautiful.

Suffers under Davies' jumbled approach, but Deyn's performance redeems it.

[Sergeant_Tibbs · 6/10 · 31 October 2015]

Lewis Grassic Gibbon's 1932 novel Sunset Song is considered a classic of Scottish literature, and English director Terence Davies has spent 15 years bringing it to the screen. It's with a heavy heart that perhaps the sprawling and archaic epic may not translate to contemporary cinema. It's the story of Chris Guthrie in the early 20th century, a teenage girl (here played by Agyness Deyn) who suffers the changing rota of her family as they pass on or exit, ultimately leaving the farm to her tending. At first, it seems it's operating on a compelling contradiction that's rarely explored. While not only is a young woman's perspective in this time hardly considered on film, but it puts her in command, independent of a man's world while they were drafted to war. Unfortunately, it doesn't sing from that hymn sheet.

The biggest problem is that it seems to lack thematic consistency, or at least develop them with interesting contrasts. Its strongest idea is initially the passage of womanhood, but instead it's interested in vicious cycles. The first third of Sunset Song is a series of examples of pure misery as Chris suffers with little relief. Peter Mullan stars as her abusive father, clearly channelling Pete Postlewaite in Distant Voices, but without the dimensions. Mullan is perfectly capable of dominating the film like he's offered here, but Davies needed to give him more layers. As sources of misery are picked off, the second third is, delightfully, pure joy. Despite some obstacles, Chris thrives on the farm and begins a seemingly happy marriage with her brother's gentle friend Ewan. However, it's void of irony of what came before and what's to come.

The war comes. It whisks Ewan away despite his initial reluctance then his branding as a coward. With little prior hints, the film turns into a bleak anti-war film in how it destroys the fabric of families in spite of earlier strengths. Chris' brilliant triumphs as an independent woman do not overcome. A compassionate film would have left veins of bittersweetness within its rays of hope and despair, but instead it's simply flat, void of the expressionistic nostalgia that Davies has utilised before. Distant Voices, Still Lives – one of the finest British films I've ever seen – and The Long Day Closes, which I was less impressed with, both have exquisite photography, creating an ethereal atmosphere. The photography here is misjudged, being far too wide for an intimate film while its modern crispness makes it feel like actors playing dress- up in theatre. At least the locations lend themselves to the beauty when the camera is outside.

Not to rob the film of its brightest shining attribute though. Agyness Deyn as Chris Guthrie is absolutely incredible, carrying the film squarely on her shoulders. She's raw, committed and deeply expressive. While her character certainly needed more work, she's never dragged down by the film's shortcomings and elevates the film where it falls. The supporting cast doesn't quite have the same potency, but that's mostly due to Davies' overly simple handling of the material. Kevin Guthrie as Ewan has two interesting sides to his character to explore, as he starts kind but transforms into a man like Chris' father, but they're put beside each other. Those facets are finally blended, but by that point it was too late to redeem. Perhaps it was more powerful when the book was written in the 30s at the dawn of another war. In Davies' direction, the film is often either conventional in its domestic dramas or its a meagre attempt at those conventions.

Sunset Song does occasionally have ambitions beyond the grand struggles of the Scottish people in the early century. With Deyn's narration, it occasionally dips into profound ideas of her insignificance in the grand scheme of time. If delivered quicker, it could have made more of an impact. It also dips into the ideas of the relationship between people and the land as the land stays resilient while war takes people away. It contrasts Chris' own battered endurance with the land's bruises. As the film plays one note at a time, it's difficult to take anything pure away from it, but at least attempts are made and lifts it up from mediocrity. Perhaps this just wasn't the right source material for a film just over 2 hours long as it even suffers from its slow pacing. Davies has always focused on the past rather than the present, but perhaps his perspective is too ancient for cinema now.

6/10

Is this a masterpiece ?

[jromanbaker · 6/10 · 8 September 2020]

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.

Good cinematography, but...

[hugh_jaeger · 6/10 · 9 January 2016]

Who were the "North Highland Regiment"? No "ladies from hell" that I've ever heard of. And why the Latin shoulder numerals "IXI"? That's not even a real or feasible Latin number.

Is my sight failing, or did the soldiers' shoulder insignia say "Brecknock"? Wasn't that a battalion of the South Wales Borderers, as in "wrong Celtic country"? Did someone just find a bundle of WW1 shoulder badges on a market stall and decide to use them, without bothering to Google what regiment or even what country they were from?

Laura Hollins (let's use your real name, not your gibberish fantasy one) gives birth to a baby several months old. Next thing we know, the boy is a few years old but Laura looks exactly the same age. Other reviewers have already noted other discontinuities with which this film is riddled.

The slow, linear narrative is likable enough. Whether Hollins' Doric is credible is for Scots to judge. But botching basic details breaks the spell. I don't feel cheated of my ticket money. Just disappointed that such basic authenticity was botched by lazy and ignorant prop-buying and film-making.

A shocker

[p-seed-889-188469 · 2/10 · 11 May 2017]

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 is NOT the average film

[colin-54631 · 9/10 · 6 January 2016]

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.

Barely passable British indie film

[Rickting · 6/10 · 26 January 2016]

Sunset Song, directed by Terence Davis, is the meandering story of a young woman coming of age in the early 20th century in Scotland. I want to use this film to make a point about why I think modern cinema, though as fascinating as ever, just isn't quite as good as previous decades for cinema. People blame blockbusters for ruining cinema, even though loads of genuinely good blockbusters are released every year. Why do people go and see blockbusters? Because the alternatives are usually sub-par dramatic films. Boring indie flicks, Oscar bait and mediocre dramas which are made for critics and critics alone. So, while blockbusters could be better, people go to see them because the alternative isn't good enough either. This film is a perfect example. With its use of voice-overs, slow pace, thematic depth and character based narrative, this is not a mainstream film at all. It's something critics will enjoy, but audiences may find it more difficult to relate to thanks to its self indulgence.

Sunset Song is visually stunning, with many great shots of the Scottish landscape. The film starts out well with some family related story lines for Chris, the young woman at the centre of the story. This stuff is reasonably moving and has a sense of a soul. Peter Mullan is very good as her brutal father. The middle section of the film completely sags, as it drones on and on with nothing really happening aside from her getting married. Then the final third involves the First World War and its effects on her. When you're actually relieved that World War I happens so that something interesting is finally going on, you know you're in trouble. In this final third, the film finally finds its feet but too little, too late. It's well directed, has some occasionally powerful moments and it's overall well acted, but unfortunately the main actress, Agyness Deyn, is awful and completely unconvincing. Add in an overindulgent runtime, a monotonous script and a general lack of energy, settling instead for conveying its messages with loads of pretentious voice-overs performed terribly by the lead actress who murders the Scottish accent. Not a terrible film, and a moderately interesting watch but it's too superficial to truly satisfy.

6/10

Tedious, and an affront to Scots and Scotland

[f-odds-1 · 1/10 · 23 December 2015]

I'm an Englishman living in Aberdeenshire, close to the supposed setting of this film. I have not read the Grassic Gibbon novel on which the film is based. I am very used to hearing the local (Doric) accent. Throughout, the film LOOKS magnificent — a tribute to its cinematographer, Michael McDonough — but there the praise has to end. The plot is a relentless succession of downbeat events, most of them hackneyed clichés, directed with a self-indulgent, self-important style that results in every scene taking five times longer than necessary to play. We have the brutal father who gets his comeuppance, to nobody's surprise; the long-suffering mother who can finally take it no more; the young girl experiencing the first pangs of her sexuality; the young father having to go to fight in World War I, and more. I'm sure these were all part of the original novel, and were probably fresh for their time, but their sheer predictability make the over-longeurs irritating. For Scottish viewers, the film may give a boost to the current drives for independence. Others on this site have picked up on the inaccuracies (I had the English 'For THE SAKE OF auld lang syne driven out of me years ago'). But the fact that some of the film was shot as far away as New Zealand to produce views of 'authentic Scottish scenery' feels an unnecessary step too far, considering the way Scots regard the views of their native land as one of the major attractions of this part of the world. The film is all about the character Chris Guthrie, played by Agyness Deyn. To borrow an old cliché (it seems appropriate) this actress covers the gamut from A to B. She has two facial expressions, plus tears, and gives no sense of comprehending her role from within. Each movement and gesture looks as if it has been explained to her by the director: her total lack of spontaneity is the prime reason for non-suspension of disbelief. Her attempt at a local accent is abysmal. One lighter note: obstetricians will be delighted to learn that an on-screen birth in the olde tymes depicted still involves calls for bowls of hot water, a doctor with bloodied arms and a view of the overwrought father listening to screams from the bedroom above. The screams stop abruptly, to be replaced by the cry of a neonate. Haven't seen this one for some years, so it's great to know the protocol is still with us.

Wedding dinner by candlelight, mist, the morning sun, . . .

[Blue-Grotto · 9/10 · 22 April 2016]

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.

Disappointing

[norrette · 7/10 · 19 April 2016]

I find it hard to believe that Terence Davies read and understood the novel which is quite a brilliant depiction of life in the Mearns. Some of the critics may not have read it either, as they put the slow dialogue down to the source material. Wrong!

Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song is verbose. The dialogue fair spins along, providing a rich characterisation of all of the main protagonists and of many of the supporting people too. The gossipy nature of the village, a key element which runs through the trilogy, was completely ignored.

The portrayal of Long Rob in the early part of the book was excluded. As was Chae's politics and the stream of dual approaches to nationalism. This is what made it such a successful novel and also an Open University set book.

I understand it took Davies 15 years to complete. Unbelievable.

Disjointed and dislocated

[languidMandala · 2/10 · 10 January 2016]

I suspect this movie will review better the further away from its location you go. If you live close by you'll despise it, if you live in Scotland you'll hate it. It probably gets better as you go further away.

The problem is that it's just not Scottish in any sense at all. This is especially true in the wedding scene which is so dull and depressing it's almost offensive to the people of the area. The whole movie lacks any kind of energy or dynamics. Yes, strictly speaking the accents are all completely wrong because everyone seems to be from the west coast but that's not such a big deal for me. I thought Agyness Deyn's on- screen accent was OK but they obviously recorded the voice-over later because she is truly horrendous at that - think Dick Van Dyke and cockney. She utterly fails with the classic shibboleth "loch".

In general Deyn's lack of training and experience undoes her here - she looks like she's acting. That combined with the overwhelming lethargy undermines the performances of the rest of the cast which are well delivered. Peter Mullan as usual shines with authenticity. So go and see it if you are in California and want a gentle breeze of early 20th century rural life in Europe. If you are in Scotland don't go without your headphones and blindfold - a nice two hour sleep in a comfy seat will be better than watching this dreary annihilation of a much loved book.

When you have three stories, choose one, or make three films.

[ayoreinf · 7/10 · 12 July 2016]

Just because the same heroine stars in the three stories covered by this film it doesn't mean we have a single movie on our hands. In fact Terence Davies does here three continuous movies without stopping between them. The first is the story of childhood with a tyrannical father, the second is the story of coming out from his shadow into an independent adult life, the third one is about WW1 and its Scotish victims. It might've worked together in the novel, it doesn't work as a single film. There's no focus' each of the stories loses from having to share screen time with the other two, becoming no more than another weak link in a chain that stretches too long. The cinematography, on the other hand is of the highest class, the acting is mostly very professional and the characters mostly ring true. It could be broken into a decent TV series, with some added scenes, or it could be made as three different films, it wasn't and it's our loss.

NOTHING ENDURES BUT THE LAND

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 22 April 2018]

This production is a slow moving drama centering on the life of Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn) from her teen school years through adulthood and marriage. It is the turn of the century in Scotland with war looming with Germany.

Chris is an exceptional intelligent person whose life would appear to be wasted by modern standards. However, she doesn't realize this as life forces her to endure leaving little time for huge dreams...like going to Canada. The film is in the realm of art house which accounts for all the acclaim. No one can bad mouth an arty film without looking oafish. This one incorporates metaphoric language in narration, "dark quiet corpse (books) that was her childhood was fulfilled in the tissue paper and laid away forever."

Chris discovers that as life passes, nothing endues but the land. I thought it was better said (and you can dance to it) by the grand philosopher Stevie Wonder, "Living Just Enough for the City" but then again I am a bit oafish.

If bitter-sweet art house historical tales your cup of tea...this is it.

Guide: sex and FF nudity (Agyness Deyn)

First half is spectacular Scottish tradition.

[deexsocalygal · 6/10 · 12 October 2020]

I liked the first half of the movie up until the Dad dies. It was rich with Scottish tradition. The clothing, songs, foods, family life on a small farm, religion, government, & the country side were all depicted pefectly. I love period dramas so this was right up my alley. The movies tone fell flat & changed after the Dad dies. Life went from barbarically hard to a glowing fairytale romance. Then her sugar sweet hubby turns sour & abusive overnight? Come on. I give this a high grade of A+ for the first part. Then from day her father dies to the end it falls apart. See if you agree.

Extremely Disappointed

[williecroft · 1/10 · 13 December 2015]

Without a doubt the biggest movie disappointment of the year. It's hard to add much to the other user reviews but from where I was sitting the accents were awful, Deyn was completely wooden and although I'm a bit of a fan if his, Peter Mullen played hard dad Peter Mullen as usual. believe me I could go on because there are so many truly naff issues with this film. The fact is the Grassic Gibbon story was butchered. I doubt if any of the film maker even read it! OK exaggeration but not much of one.

Its not a documentary and like everyone else I'm at the movies so happy to suspend disbelief but there were too many "that's nonsense, they widnae dae that" moments for me and I could hear a general stifled groan in the Glasgow audience. I mean, who comes into your house and just starts singing for flip's sake?

lastly, can't anyone other than a Scot recognise a true Scots accent? Grass Gibbon's trilogy was so great, so well adapted by the BBC all those years ago and in fact so well loved that it makes me sad to watch this movie.

Falls short of being a truly powerful experience

[howard.schumann · 8/10 · 26 June 2016]

The father of former San Francisco Mayor Jack Shelley once told him, "The day you forget where you came from, you won't belong where you are." This advice is not lost on Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn, "Clash of the Titans"), a young woman coming of age in Terence Davies' ("The Deep Blue Sea") Sunset Song. Adapted from the 1932 novel of Lewis Grassic Gibbon and set in Scotland in the early 1900s, the film is more than a song of sunset, it is a symphony of the fields and lakes and distant mountains of Aberdeenshire and a young woman devoted to the land, harvesting the wheat, lying in the sun, wrapping herself in "the old star-eaten blanket of the sky." Talking of herself in voice-over, she says, "Nothing endured but the land. Sea, sky and the folk who lived there were but a breath. But the land endured…she was the land."

The gorgeous painterly views photographed by cinematographer Michael McDonough ("Winter's Bone"), however, does not conceal the isolation felt by those coming up against a system that ostracizes anyone standing against the town's social and religious conformity. Women especially are at a disadvantage. They have to endure sex without contraception, painful and often fatal childbirth, and marital beatings and rapes that are considered part of the marriage vow, "for better or worse." The film traces Chris' growth from an intelligent but passive student to an adult both willing and able to stand up for herself. At first she is seen in school where she is admired for her excellent French pronunciation.

At home things are different, however. The Guthrie farm is run by the patriarch, John (Peter Mullan, "Tyrannosaur"), a sadistic bully who beats his son Will (Jack Greenlees) for minor infractions such as naming his horse "Jehovah," and forces his wife Jean (Daniela Nardini) into repeated pregnancies. Both Will and Jean find a way out in vastly different ways, but Chris, having given up any hopes of becoming a teacher, endures her brutal father until he is felled by a stroke. Fortunately, her paternal aunt Janet (Linda Duncan McLaughlin) and Uncle Tam (Ron Donachie, "Filth") arrive to take her younger brothers back to raise in Aberdeen but Chris carries on at Blawearie, running the farm herself.

As Ma Joad said in "The Grapes of Wrath," "With a woman, it's all in one flow, like a stream - little eddies and waterfalls - but the river, it goes right on." Like the strong-willed Bathsheba of Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd," Chris never succumbs to her mother's cynicism about men, falling in love with and marrying a local farmer Ewan Tavendale (Kevin Guthrie). The scenes where the Ewan and Chris find happiness in marriage and childbirth are the most joyous of the film, especially when Chris sings "The Flowers of the Forest" at their wedding, but, there are signs that it cannot last. When World War I is declared, anyone who doesn't enlist is labeled a coward, accused of refusing to fight for God, King, and country.

Succumbing to threats from Reverend Gibbon (Jack Bonnar), Ewan enlists but the war will change him forever and make him unrecognizable to those who are closest to him. Chris bears her fate in poetic terms, saying, "There are lovely things in the world, lovely, that do not endure, and they're lovelier for that," but her positive feelings soon turn to denial. Sunset Song is a beautiful film and a tribute to those who have the courage and patience to endure pain. Though there are many moments when we know that we are in the hands of a master but the film, in spite of its physical beauty and compelling message, never reaches the emotional depth necessary for a truly powerful experience and the haunting music of a bagpipe at the end only suggests the great film it might have been.

Good Film, Well Done, but...

[derek-duerden · 7/10 · 7 July 2022]

... unlike "Distant Voices..." I didn't end up so emotionally engaged.

Maybe (sadly) a lot of this now feels a bit cliched - arcadian background / family struggle / WW1 and its aftermath / etc. - and this didn't do much that was sufficiently different, IMHO. (Unlike "Gwen", for example.)

Cinematography is great, Agyness is fine, so, apart from what felt like an unnecessarily long running time, I suspect that it's the source material that's the weak point. But that could just be me.

So - by no means a "bad film", and worth a look.

A film with no soul.

[babsyfortyfive · 2/10 · 2 December 2015]

What a dreadful film, underpinned by Agyness Deyn's truly appalling accent. She only had one facial expression, and that was static. The film was episodic, with the episodes seeming to be scenes that were happening while the real action was taking place in another world. I struggle to think how people who don't know the story will have made any sense at all of this drivel. The entire cast of characters seemed to hail from Glasgow except in the main character's case, who seemed to be from everywhere except Scotland, far less the north-east. Please, if you go to see this film, pretend it's about a mythical country peopled by one- dimensional characters. Don't imagine it has any connection with Scotland. It doesn't. It is woeful and, at 2hr 15 minutes, at least two hours too long.

Scottish girl weds farm boy and loses him to the savagery of war

[maurice_yacowar · 8/10 · 6 January 2016]

Terence Davies's new film treads familiar grounds despite his shift to the early 1900s Highlands. A violent father is brutally insensitive to his oldest son and daughter — and to his wife, who kills herself and her infant twins when she finds he has impregnated her again.

The son weds and removes himself to Argentina but we follow the daughter, Chris, as she takes over the farm and matures into motherhood and womanhood.

The mother's most poignant speech teaches Chris that women are helpless before men. By men the mother has in mind brutes like her husband, not gentle idealists like her oldest son. And like Ewan, the farm boy neighbour Chris weds and loves.

The film's leisurely 135 minutes observes the passing of the days and seasons and vicissitudes of life working up to a crucial revelation at the end. Now a father, Ewan is pressured to enlist in the First World War. He comes down the stairs and announces he's off to Aberdeen the way her brother did when he broke away from home. But Ewan was reluctant to leave his wife and bairn.

We don't see Ewan's battleground experiences but we see how they've changed him when he storms home for a short leave. Coarse, violent, angry, insulting — he has turned into an irreligious version of her happily departed father. Unlike her mother, though, Chris won't be cowed. The morning after he's raped her she holds him off with a knife: "I'm not afraid of you." He returns coldly to his unit.

Chris continues to run the farm without him. She refuses to believe the government letter reporting he died in battle in France. Then his old comrade tells her she should know the truth: Ewan was shot as a coward and deserter. He's telling her because he wants her to get on with her young life.

Then we get the film's only flashback. That friend is preparing Ewan to face the firing squad. The Ewan we see is the old Ewan, not the brutalized soldier who was so repulsive on his visit home. Finally believing he's dead, Chris realizes that "He did it for me."

That line — and the intrusive flashback — takes some unpacking. Ewan couldn't stay out of the war for her, however he tried, as he was openly charged with cowardice. Nor could he prevent the war's brutalizing effect on him. So to save her from having to live with the brute he has become he has himself killed. As we view the firing squad from his perspective Davies implicates the citizenry in the savagery that launches and embraces warfare.

Not sharing her mother's cynical experience of men, Chris remembers the Ewan she loved, the gentle, considerate man. So she infers that he had himself killed rather then impose on her what the war had made him. That's the song she sings to his sunset.

Pretentious Claptrap, Occasionally Pretty to Look At

[billmarsano · 3/10 · 8 June 2016]

Seeking irredeemable Presbyterian gloom? Then Sunset Song is the haggis you crave. Critically if unconvincingly acclaimed, it's set in rural 1900-ish Scotland, the part where the scenery is well, OK, but hardly of malt-whiskey-ad beauty. Our heroine is Chris, a lovely and intelligent girl now going on to 'college'--meaning secretarial school as understood at the time. That doesn't happen but never mind —as we're told by the incessant bloody narration, Chris is in love with THE LAND! She identifies with it! Spiritually! Hard to believe, but the narration absolutely insists. Home life is hell or a little worse but Chris survives to make a wonderful marriage. Then that goes bad, and she is sort of inconsolable. Fade out. You can stop reading here unless interested in all the loose parts that drag the thing down. We open with a scene of closeness between Chris and her best gal pal--who then simply disappears. Chris says her Pa is a wool-dyed socialist, committed to universal justice, but that disappears too, and instead we get a religious tyrant who beats his grown son bloody, drives his wife to infanticide and suicide and tries to rape Chris but dies in the attempt. There's another unsuccessful rape attempt, this by the hired man, but it means nothing to the story. The Son should have murder on his mind, but he simply leaves; end of HIS story. After Ma's suicide, two surviving younger siblings are brusquely shipped out: end of THEIR story. Chris runs the farm almost alone yet is somehow an extremely good farmer, at least in the romanticized kind of agriculture retailed here: much moony contemplation/joyous reveling re the (semi-lovely) land, little reference to the back-breaking slavery that rural farming actually was. Enter farmhand Ewan, a gentle, loving, considerate, good- natured paragon of Mr. Right. Theirs is a marriage of the made-in- heaven variety, so catastrophe is guaranteed. Ah yes--World War I. Ewan goes off to the army and returns a brute, a savage, a monster. He's barely through the door when he rapes Chris, which he does nightly. Oh!--the horrors of PTSD, right? Well no. Ewan has been totally dehumanized by a mere few weeks of basic training! When he does go to the front, he immediately deserts, is immediately caught and immediately shot for a coward. We close with Chris sobbing into one of Ewan's shirts, crying piteously "I understood." What? Doesn't she identify with THE LAND anymore? Those who consider narration death to movies, and pointless details likewise, will call this a multiple homicide. The filmmakers' failure here is due to inability to manage the novel that is their source. Turning a novel into a movie almost invariably means leaving LOTS of stuff out so as to focus on the essentials. That didn't happen here, and the result is a barely coherent mess, heavily larded with tedium.

Wrong accents!

[harper1875-230-359237 · 4/10 · 14 February 2021]

Ok, most people outside of Scotland won't be able to tell the difference, but the film was full of people with Glaswegian/West of Scotland accents (even the main actress, an English woman, put on a West of Scotland accent).

I don't care where an actor comes from, at least TRY and do the right accent. The sad thing is, this happens all the time, and it is insulting that nobody making the film seemed to care.