Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

46 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER No. 4 1944 Two Views on "Our Country" Our Country. Production: Strand for M.O.I. Direction: John Eldridge. Photography: Jo Jago. Music: William Alwyn. Specialised commercial. 50 minutes. Subject: A lyrical look at the face of war-time Britain. Treatment: This film wanders gracefully, if somewhat nebulously, from the ships of Liverpool, through the bombed streets of London, the apple orchards, hopfields and airfields of Kent, the mining valleys of South Wales and the steelworks of Sheffield, up to the West Indian lumber camps in Scotland, to finish round a bottle of rum in the cabin of a trawler tied up at Point Law, Aberdeen. The different sections are held loosely together by a merchant seaman (David Sime), who travels from one place to the other on his tour of inspection on foot, by lorry, by car, by train, with his kitbag slung over his shoulder and a ready welcome waiting for him everywhere. He joins the apple and hop-pickers in Kent, gets an invitation to a harvest supper, watches the Welsh miners sing, picks up a girl in Sheffield, rides on a train with the engine driver, jitterbugs with the lads from Honduras and boozes with the trawlermen of Aberdeen, all in an atmosphere of almost painfully perfect friendliness. The whole film is exquisitely shot and, in particular, beautifully photographed — not so much the conventional over-filtered landscapes and cloud effects as the natural, effective low-key scenes as the seaman wanders around St. Paul's or the railway station. And there are many pleasant incidents — the tough dame in the hopfields darning his sock, the vicious-looking Welsh schoolmaster with his temporarily unterrorised class, and, best of all, the firm masculine ring and bite of the Welsh miners singing. But of its very nature and approach the film suffers from vagueness and woolliness. It has one of those "poetic" commentaries (the style of the whole film is impressionistic) which pound on and on with very little relation to what the picture's doing — like somebody determined to finish a funny story in spite of the fact that all the company is busily engaged on something else — and which I'd sincerely hoped we'd seen the last of; and, for once, Bill Alwyn's music is disappointing. The director has, I think, concentrated on trying to give an impression of good looks, and of a natural unforced "Christian" friendliness, which no doubt he finds the most pleasant characteristic of British life, and in that he has in a large measure succeeded. It is a pity that this air of well-meaning friendliness should carry, like the vicar's fixed smile at the village fete, such an effect of coldness and gutlessness. I should have thought the warmth and strength of those Welsh miners or the toughness of that Welsh schoolmaster were the British qualities to-day more in need of exploration for ourselves and of presentation for the world. But that is not to deny that this is a very good-looking and well-made film. Propaganda Value: Good prestige among the artistically inclined. ^he stress and urgencies of war do not make ■■■ for experiments in technique. For the past five years documentary has been developing the various shapes and formulae which were evolved during the Thirties, and which were, in 1939, so diverse that they formed first-class foundations for the period of rapid expansion which has since taken place. Documentary has in no sense been marking time. But new methods have, in general, been forced to await a period of somewhat different atmosphere. It is a likely guess that such a period, whose prerequisite is not so much leisure as a definite mood which war usually damps, is about to open. Highly significant therefore is Our Country, which is, as far as I know, the sole and successful experimental film of the war period. It says important things in a new way. And because this new way involves poetry, impressionism, and in general a lyrical approach, the film may, perhaps, be a source of controversy and perhaps heart-searching amongst documentary workers who have for so long had their noses pressed against the war-time grindstone. Now it would be absurd to urge everyone in documentary to make films like Our Country. In the first place John Eldridge is the only person who can; and in the second place it is a film which is important in itself, for what it is; and that is the sort of film which documentary ought to produce at least once in every five years. Our Country says a great deal about Britain, and says it with deep emotion. It uses filmcontinuity in a specially exciting manner, and one which it has always been difficult to bring off; for it involves an absolute logic arising not from a definite story, but from a flow of visuals and sounds (Alwyn's score is his best so far) which achieve logicality because they are purely and simply film. You can't translate the plot of Our Country on to paper; it doesn't belong on paper, only on celluloid. You can do no more than say that the film is about a sailor who comes ashore in wartime and participates, as a visitor from another world, in the lives and work, fears and happinesses of men and women and children everywhere in these Islands. You may add, if you like, that there is a prologue by an American soldier; add to that there is a girl who is there because she is your girl or mine (and therefore in this film, the sailor's — watch please the lovely reversed continuity by which Eldridge gets this point across, thus achieving universality without making a dreary "symbolic woman" at the same time). For fifty minutes this waking dream, or rather this live vision of the inwardness of our daily life, evokes both thoughts and emotions which you cannot find other than valid. By rights it should be noticeably episodic, but it is not : indeed it is so much the reverse that after it is over you feel that everything has been superimposed on everything — and yet every single facet is in itself as clear as crystal. It would be idiotic to claim perfection. There are things wrong in the film— patches of commentary which are a mere combination of hurriedly spoken words, and which stand out all the more alarmingly amongst the long stretches in which Dylan Thomas succeeds for the first time in wedding (and subordinating) his style to the needs of the medium. There are some unnecessary repetitions of mood, and, thereby, of type-visuals. But in general the film achieves a genuine integrity, of aesthetic and sentiment (in the proper use of that misused word); and it is an object lesson in inspired shooting. Eldridge has developed his technique slowly, and obviously with much pain and grief, but here he comes out on top, with an ability to portray the most trivial gestures and sights of our daily life with an insight and affection which move us because they are not tricks, but truth. What he does next will be of prime interest to documentary' He cannot repeat himself, because Our Country is of itself, and inimitable; but his personal approach to our medium is bound to bring documentary something it needs. Summer Film School, St. Andrews At St. Andrews in August, the Scottish Youth Leadership Training Association sponsored a week's residential film school. Its aim was to instruct youth leaders in the use of film for the benefit of youth organisations. The school had the co-operation of the Scottish Educational Film Association, the Scottish Film Council, the Fife Education Authority and the cinema trade in the provision of lecturers and of equipment and accommodation. Miss Isabel Sinclair, the Scottish film critic gave talks, one of them on Film Appreciation. The students, who numbered 25, were instructed in the use of projectors and equipment, viewed a number of documentary and other films and listened to a variety of talks covering such subjects as the construction of the film story, the teamwork of the film production unit and the use that could be made of the commercial SIGHT and SOUND A cultural Quarterly MONTHLY FILM BiLLETIN appraising educational and entertainment values Published by: The British Film Institute, 4 Great Russell Street, London, W.C.I.