That's the word I used to describe I Know Where I'm Going, a 1944 British film I watched a few nights ago by the directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, starring Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesay. Utterly charming, and as I said above, enchanting. It's a rather simple story: a headstrong young woman from London who knows what she wants and where she's going, is to be married in Scotland on the Hebridean Island of Kiloran to one of the richest men in England. Unable to make the crossing over to the island due to the weather, she finds herself falling in love with one of the locals, on leave from the Navy. She realized she must get to the island and be married or all the things she's always wanted - money, luxury, the high-life - will be threatened by these feelings. But enough spoilers. If you really want to know more about it the link above has a terrific analysis of the movie. My wife wasn't up for a movie when I watched so that gives me an opportunity to see it again soon - it's not one she'll want to miss. I also filled up my Netflix queue with three more Powell and Pressburger movies from their 1940s heyday, which arrived in the mail today. And a happy feller am I.
The movie reminded me of another movie set in Scotland that I love, Local Hero, which was one of the first movies my wife (then girl-friend) and I ever saw together. Another piece of enchantment: the big-city oil executive arrives in a small Scottish seaside village to buy the entire town in order to build a new refinery. Slowly, he starts to decompress, he catches the rhythms and the charms of the town and the townfolk, and finally, he is in love. Not with a woman, but a way of life. He's found the contentment he'd always been searching for. The last thing in the world he wants to do is disturb this little slice of paradise. The humor in it is that the people of the village, aware of his initial intentions, would like nothing better; they're holding not-so-secret meetings to figure out the best strategy to net them the most money from the deal. I've always considered Local Hero to be a small masterpiece.
So there are two movies set in Scotland for your enjoyment. And my preceding post was about the ongoing British Open at St. Andrews, Scotland. I guess I must end with some music set in Scotland. Here is Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture, a magnificent piece of music, completed in the year 1830 when he was just 21 years old:
[audio:TheHebridesOverture.mp3]
[...] blogged a few days back about how much I enjoyed Powell and Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going and that I was [...]
ReplyDelete[...] the point in this blog where I start repeating myself. It occurred to me mid-sentence above that I’ve already blogged about how much I love the movie. Not much more to add, except that, if you love movie magic, that mystical, bewitching, feeling [...]
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