I've been to the cinema in Rye on my day off and have sat through two hours of hard viewing but brilliance in the adaptation of the novel "Sunset Song" set around the outbreak of World War One. The relationships in it are not easy to watch. The abusive father,, a turn-of-the-century farming patriarch torn between the anger of devotion (he sings hymns while harvesting) and the demons of violence and lust (he beats his son and beds his wife “like a breeding sow”, the screams of sex and childbirth intermingled). The yearning female voice, Agyness Deyn providing internal monologue narration for Chris, who is torn between the beauty of the ancient Scottish land on which she toils, and the “sharp, clean and true” English words of an education that may yet take her away from all this. And there is unforgiving religion, from father’s belt to the damnation poured from the pulpit upon those (including Chris’s true love, Ewan) who have no enthusiasm for war, branded as “pro-German cowards” in league with an Antichrist Kaiser.
There are in the film themes of denying yourself, anger, violence, love, death, duty, and narrow religion, coming back from war damaged, and much more. I thought of Christmas and darkness as the last words of the film and the novel were shared about the last light of the day:
" You can do without the day if you've a lamp quiet-lighted and kind in your heart."
A hard watch - but a worthwhile one.
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