:55:02
(Christie)
It's thanks to mechanised fishing
:55:07
that Andrew will be able
to respond to the message,
:55:11
because while the primitive means
of sending mail in a tiny boat
:55:15
is pure chance,
:55:17
it's only with an engine behind him
:55:20
that Andrew will be able
to get to Foula in time
:55:24
to hopefully save
his and Ruth's child.
:55:28
So we see the ship being stoked.
:55:31
This is really like an image
from one of those
:55:35
Grierson documentaries
of the 1930s.
:55:38
We could almost be
in a film like Coal Face,
:55:41
or one of the other, one of the many
fishing films made at this time.
:55:45
It's interesting how Powell manages
to drop into a documentary idiom
:55:50
and then move out of it
:55:52
when the drama of the film
needs to be reasserted.
:56:15
When we see in these images
the beginnings of the great storm
:56:20
which forms the second climax
of the film...
:56:23
They're very picturesque,
they're beautiful.
:56:27
This is one of the great
nature sequences,
:56:31
really as fine as anything
in a French or a Russian film,
:56:35
in its rhythmic use
:56:37
of different textures,
different kinds of movement,
:56:40
as the wind begins to rise.
:56:43
In fact, what the film makers
were going through
:56:45
was much more terrifying
and even more elemental
:56:49
because a real storm blew up,
:56:52
they were cut off for some weeks
on Foula.
:56:57
The wind rose
and for ten days it blew.