Harvest
If he who names a thing owns and controls a thing, then the people of the village of no name, surrounded by fields of grass blowing in the sun on the shores of the loch, the borders which define the limits of their world bound by the stones they were taught as children never to pass, could perhaps be regarded as free, ploughing, sewing, reaping, weaving, shearing the sheep, the sparse produce enough to sell at market and a little left over to feed them.
Approaching the end of harvest when the celebrations and feasting will be led by the lord of the manor, Charles Kent, the harmony of the village is disrupted by a series of accidents and tragedies and intrusions, a fire in the barn which kills some of the livestock, strangers found on the shore, the two men blamed and put in the stocks while the woman has her hair shorn and is thrown out, then the arrival of Kent’s guest Earle, the mapmaker who observes and takes note of all he sees with a view to changing how the land is managed and cultivated, and populated.
Based on the 2013 novel by Jim Crace, Harvest is directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari from a script adapted by Tsangari and Joslyn Barnes, starring The Dead Don’t Die’s Caleb Landry Jones as Walter Thirsk, the widower who as a child was once best friend to the man who now presides over them, alongside Arinzé Kene as Philip Earle, concerned only with his work rather than the changes it will bring, Rosy McEwen as widow Kitty Gosse who has caught Walt’s eye and Thalissa Teixeira as “Mistress Beldam.”
The woman who haunts the fields, emerging at night to seek revenge for what was done to her and her companions who took the blame for the fire, the timing of their discovery sufficient to condemn them as guilty, Walt knows who was really responsible but says nothing, his silence the first step which condemns them all to the disintegration of their community as resentment festers, dividing the villagers and causing them to turn on each other out of fear, an act of violence against the master leading inevitably to accusations of witchcraft.
The villagers poor peasants beholden to the whims of their master, Kent (Say Your Prayers’ Harry Melling playing another functional idiot) finds the privileged position he holds is threatened by the arrival of his cousin and his enforcers, Edmund Jordan (Fear the Walking Dead’s Frank Dillane) indifferent to the suffering he prompts or who is punished as an example to others, profit trumping any goodwill to man, Harvest set in an unspecified year but telling a familiar and timeless story though without any joy to make it palatable.
What Tsangari has crafted is a dirge of almost unbroken misery as the villagers cower for fear of making their pitiful lot worse, Kent an ineffectual leader and Walt hiding truths which might have changed things, a sour-faced man so broken he makes no effort to make things better for himself or others, the few genuine moments of magic of the colours of nature under the blue skies and clouds insufficient to balance the scales, the harvest a meagre one which lingers longer than necessary that the full indigestible bitterness of it might be known.
Glasgow Film Festival continues until Sunday 9th March
