SUNSET SONG
‘The animals
defecate and urinate all over the place’
Zealand before a Luxembourg leg and i nally a return to the book’s spiritual Scottish home, with the production decamping to Ballater in Aberdeenshire. It was a tough shoot, says Davies. ‘There’s nothing glamorous about sitting around on a farm, in mud, in the pouring rain, and then the animals defecate and urinate all over the place.’
Deyn didn’t complain. In New Zealand, she and her co-star Jack Greenlees, who plays Chris’ brother Will, were taught how to farm with old-school methods. ‘We collected the crop and learnt to scythe it and tie it up,’ she explains. That helped her get into the rhythms of Gibbon’s story and when the shoot arrived in Scotland, the inclement weather was just what she needed, emotionally. ‘The coldness and the bleakness added to where we had to be in the i lm,’ she insists. Sunset Song is a gruelling watch as Chris and Will face grief and violence amid the bone-numbing winters. ‘It’s a hard life and it’s a hard story,’ says Davies. ‘But what I love about the book is that it’s so full of humanity. The ending is about forgiveness for all suffering no matter where it is. That’s a huge statement at the end of any novel. But it’s so humane, I think.’
While Deyn’s performance has been rightly lauded when the i lm
premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, US reviewers criticised the thick Scottish vernacular, claiming foreign audiences might require subtitles. Davies seems surprised when I raise this. ‘It doesn’t need subtitles,’ he retorts. ‘And the answer would be “no” anyway!’ He’s also uncertain at the praise heaped on the i lm’s stunning photography, shot in natural light and inspired by Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi. ‘You can make i lms look beautiful but they can be completely unmemorable. I wouldn’t want to fall into the Sistine Chapel complex, where everything is gorgeous but you don’t give a damn about what you’re looking at. Then I would be worried.’
Rather like his modesty, this is typical Davies who is perhaps burnt by reviews of his earlier i lms. ‘A lot of people who don’t like my work say it’s ponderous and slow. They’ve said it in print or said it to me, but that’s the way I see it. Some people hate what I do with a passion: I can tell you.’ Perhaps Sunset Song will i nally sound a different tune.
Sunset Song is on general release from Fri 11 Dec. See review, page 91.
5 Nov 2015–4 Feb 2016 THE LIST 59