The Edge Of The World

I saw this before going on holiday a few weeks ago, but only just remembered to post some shots. The Edge Of The World was a film directed by Michael Powell before he began working with Emeric Pressburger to produce wonders such as The Red Shoes and A Matter Of Life And Death. I approached this one with some caution due to the lack of Pressburger and the relatively ordinary experience of A Canterbury Tale (which I’m now thinking I must see again). I needn’t have. The Edge Of The World deals with the departure of a Scottish island’s inhabitants to the mainland when the peat stocks become exhausted. The basis of the story is that of St Kilda. The film is a striking paean to nature and wo/man’s relationship to it. It’s shot through with breathtaking visual poetry and except for the leads it looks like it uses local people, their faces lined with experience. —- Warning, spoiler: two friends fall out over whether it’s right to leave the island or not. To settle the matter they conduct a dangerous race to scale a cliff with fatal results for one of them. The survivor is in love with his friend’s sister and they are eventually reunited before the evacuation. The death of this man is tragic, symbolic and rather strange. —- Highly recommended, it makes me yearn to return to the places I visited as a child with my parents on summer holidays.