Jackie Seaton

Haunting and romantic, witty, perceptive and wise, this film has been a personal favourite for many years. The film is set in the wild and sparsely populated Western Isles and presents us with the ancient Highland way of life ; the tightknit skein of relationships based on kinship, lifelong interconnectedness and obligation; the islanders wresting a living from the forbidding landscape through crofting, hunting and fishing. Despite their lack of income, the islanders know how to value what they have above money - though they are also adept at seizing the main chance when wealthier incomers present them with opportunities. The simple plot concerns an ambitious young woman from London, Joan Webster, who is on her way to a small island - Killoran - to marry a much older, rich industrialist. She finds herself stranded on the nearest large island by a gale. She begins to fall in love with the place and the islanders' way of life, and is drawn to a young RAF captain on leave (who turns out to be the local laird and the owner of the island that her fiancé has rented). Whilst the brief early montage scene on the train is comically brilliant, and shows them to be steeped in filmography, essentially Powell and Pressburger have made a poetic homage to the ancient Scottish landscape, its castles and ruins, and its people. The photography is a rapturous tribute to the severe beauty of the Inner Hebrides and even the special effects, such as the Corryvreckan whirlpool scene, stand up surprisingly well for a film made in 1944-5. You cannot help but be drawn to the powerful sense of place. This was Powell's tribute to a part of the world that drew him back again and again. He even made the trek to storm-ravaged, deserted St Kilda's, 90 miles from the Outer Hebrides, and camped there, filming and photographing the island during his stay. The Sottish landscape haunted him for the rest of his life and I think he managed to capture much about the place and his feeling for it in this wonderful film.