QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM VENICE

The land is verdant, lush and tactile in Athina Rachel Tsangari’s first film in nine years (Chevalier won the BFI London Film Festival in 2015). The 17th-century peasants are deeply attached to the environment. Their existence is defined by the black soil, the tiny insects, the colourful crops and also the occasional folk celebrations – all duly captured in detail by Sean Price Williams’s lens. Dreamy meets hyperrealism. This is a movie about people’s connection to the earth. These human beings are deeply rooted creatures. Their attachment to their land and community is steadfast. The fauna and the fauna provide our characters with safety and subsistence. It is other persons that pose a threat. Their behaviour is feral, mandated by old-fashioned tradition and bizarre superstition. Honour, revenge and avarice often prevail.

The story begins with two bird thieves having sentenced to stand in the pillory for a week as a punishment for their “crime”. The men are outsiders, and this is a closely-knit and insular community, unprepared to welcome newcomers. Their territorialism is such that they “mark” their borders by hitting their head on a stone. No visible sign is left on the rocky formation, yet the symbolic gesture remains firmly imprinted in the psychology of the “mulish” locals. One beautiful soul attempts to help them out by placing a stepping stone under their feet, thus making their predicament less tortuous. That’s our introverted protagonist Walter “Walt” Thirsk (Caleb Landry Jones). Surprnsingly, they reject his gesture of kindness. There is no room for solidarity, trust and empathy.

Walt lost his wife at childbirth and their only child to a bee sting. He is in a relationship with the equally shy Kitty (Rosy McEwen), but their interactions remain secret and mostly based on sex. Magic mushrooms help to instil some joy into their mostly drab and dull lives, and to spice up their timid relationship. The relative stability of the village begins to collapse after Master Jordan (Frank Dillane) arrives with his stooges in order to oversee operations. He works on behalf of his cousin, the arrogant and unscrupulous landowner Master Kent (Harry Melling). A further arrival is a more welcome one: friendly charterer Mr Earle (Arinzé Kene), who has been tasked with drawing a map of the region. Walt takes him on a tour of the mountains anc lochs, and teaches the name of the local plants and their respective medicinal functions. Meanwhile, a mysterious Portuguese-speaking black woman (Thalissa Teixeira) observes the developments. Villagers brand her a “witch”, and exact punishment by cutting her hair and handing out the locks to lewd male onlookers.

With an epic duration of 131 minutes (nearly two hours and a quarter), Harvest does always not rise to the occasion. The abundance of secondary characters seriously compromises the script. At times, the relatively simple developments are nearly impossible to follow. The story becomes protracted and prolonged, eventually losing its early grip on viewers. A very bizarre and unexpected murder scene is highly engaging, however its narrative coherence is highly questionable. And there is at least one prominent anachronism: Mr Earle has a prominent Nigerian accent – that’s roughly 200 years before Britain ever colonised what is the now the most populous country of Africa. By having two prominent black characters, the director attempts to infuse the story with some racial commentary. I’m just not sure what the Greek director – who penned the screenplay alongside Joslyn Barnes – is trying to say.

Harvest just premiered in the Official Competition of the 81st Venice International Film Festival. The film is an adaptation of Jim Crace’s eponymous novel.