Terence Davies' Sunset Song is a beautifully crafted exploration of one woman's endurance against the harsh realities of growing up in the Scottish countryside, as she perseveres in a world dictated harshly by the patriarchal forces of traditional lifestyle. A study of the conflicting forces of the modern world and age-old tradition, Sunset Song presents a powerful and poetic coming of age story of Chris, with her intense passion for life being one of the things that keeps her going through years of torment. The daughter of a tyrannical man in John, her father, Sunset Song focuses on Chris' so-called formative years in the beginning, documenting the pain and torment not only she endures, but also her brother and mother due at the hands of this vile, mean-spirited man. While her brother is eventually able to leave the oppressive household, due to finding work elsewhere, Chris and her mother aren't granted such a luxury, given the fact that woman are viewed strictly as second-class individuals, caregivers and child-bearers who are essentially linked to their male counterpart, whether husband or father, until they deem otherwise. In this way, Sunset Song is a film that focuses on feminine perseverance, with Chris even seeing her own mother commit suicide, seeing it as the only way in which she can rid herself of her husband's tight, cold grip. While I would certainly argue that characterization of Chris' father can be a little over dramatized at times, he is an important character in Sunset Song, a potent symbolic representation of masculinity in this time, where toughness, and respect were demanded and the will of the patriarch was done, with feminine introspection not even being considered in any family decision making. A story of strength, Chris endures her father's abusive tendencies right up until his death, which also becomes Chris' empowerment in this stark, patriarchal world when she learns that all of her father's savings has been passed directly down to her. Given a sense of individuality and freedom she had never experienced before, Chris becomes intertwined with a young man in Ewan, with the two falling in love with one and other, intent on starting a family together. All of that changes though, with the dawn of the first World War reaching out from afar, which eventually sees Chris' husband Ewan reluctantly enlist in the conflict, due to facing extreme pressures related to being perceived as a coward by his peers for not going into conflict with the other men. In the days leading up to his departure, Ewan becomes a much more volatile husband, mirroring the actions of Chris' father on some level, taking out his own fears of going to war and death out on his wife. His fear is considered cowardice and weak from the perspective of traditional masculinity, and Terence Davies' Sunset Song perfectly captures how these insecurities create volatility and conflict, becoming an oppressive force against Chris' nurturing, feminist qualities, as well as Ewan's own good-natured demeanor up until this point. While Terence Davies' Sunset Song lacks the nuance and dimension of the filmmaker's profound earlier work, it's a film that still stands over most, being an intimate, yet grandoise story of hope, tragedy, and love, which deconstructs how volatile the stringent definition of masculinity can have not only on feminism, but also men, who at times can feel forced to live up to its stringed definition.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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