Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari
Stars: Frank Dillane, Arinzé Kene, Caleb Landry Jones
Its unclear whether cinemas are failing MUBI or if MUBI are failing cinemas, but the distribution of Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest was so poor that it arrives to stream just three weeks after whatever theatrical release is was supposedly given in the UK (this window may even have been the sticking point). Regardless, the streaming platform is now the best place for the curious to enter Tsangari’s slow-burn depiction of a rural Scottish microclimate as change is thrust upon it.
Harvest comes into focus gradually, calcifying from blocky, blurred images that recall a stream in need of a buffer before attaining the clarity of Sean Price Williams’ gorgeous 16mm photography. The intention may be to convey a sense of arriving in Tsangari’s story, but it also mirrors the dawning of realisations that occur too-deep into Harvest for many of it’s poor subjects.
Unmoored from the specificity of exact time and place, we’re introduced to Walter Thirsk (cinema’s pre-eminent rogue Caleb Landry Jones) and his kinsmen in the throes of some jubilant nighttime ceremony which ends in a suspicious fire. Arson, or act of god? Master Kent (Harry Melling) is the township’s seemingly-benevolent benefactor and, as harvest time rolls around, encroaching modernity sows trouble with the locals, who are quick to react with fear and violence toward anything new or unknown. Strangers have their hair cut, or are placed in stocks. But are the villagers ultimately the ones to be wary of?
Tsangari tells her tale through a slow accumulation of context, languidly showing us the rites and rituals of these people, backed superbly by the evocative production design of Nathan Parker and the efforts of costumer Kirsty Halliday. Through communal meals and dance we observe what’s tolerated and what isn’t. Indeed, most actions in the community are undertaken as a group. Though for Walter, who has designs on fair-haired lass Kitty (Rosy McEwan), some privacy would be much desired. His narration doubles-down on his sense of discomfort with tradition. He is an outlier interested in change. Arriving painter Quill’s (Arinzé Kene) mapmaking of the wider area fascinates him, prompting friendship and the beginnings of an information exchange.
If the camaraderie between Walter and Quill promotes the idea of positive change, this is ultimately overshadowed by the encroaching mercilessness of agricultural industry, which threatens to obliterate the peasants’ community in a manner easily tessellated with contemporary concerns with displacement and overdevelopment. Harvest is ultimately about the perversity in the fundamental idea of ownership over the land. The intrinsic greed, possessiveness and arrogance of it. Frank Dillane disdainfully embodies this as itinerate urbanite and capitalist Master Jordan.
Harvest has plenty of the modern iconography of folk-horror, from sinister masks to the general cult-ish behaviour of the tribe. But it is not a horror picture. Rather it attempts to approach the secularism of paganism from the perspective of the insider, asking the viewer to seek normalcy in it, to even find it precious. It is a drama within a horror setting, if you will. But, even saying this, pinning genre on Harvest is tricky. The duo in the stocks are hilarious, for instance, while a mid-film aside on the blossoming romance between Walter and Kitty feels like a too-brief chapter unto itself. Tsangari’s film is rarely one thing.
For all the wretches Landry Jones has played in the past, Walter is a wonderful against-type effort. His method-approach, steeping himself in the accent, mostly pays off. He feels authentic here, watery blue eyes filled with worry, and seeing him in a more laudable role turns out to be extremely welcome. Perhaps the year’s savviest piece of casting. Through Walter we experience the tragedy of pitiless dehumanisation. He’s another wretch, in the end, but thanks only to his naivety in the smiling face of tyranny.
Tsangari’s return to feature filmmaking, through Harvest, is a boon, and this is her most fully-realised work yet, at times recalling Lars Von Trier at his most incisive. It isn’t the film I expected it to be from the promotional materials; it is, in fact, a much better one.
Shame I couldn’t see it on a cinema screen, really.
The Lost Highway Hotel 