Grasses sway in the wind. A hand with black fingernails picks up a snail. The man taking in the trees, meadows and water with all his senses is widower Walter Thirsk, a city dweller turned farmer. He is a romantic anti-hero, not fully belonging to the village, not really part of it, and torn between loyalty to the villagers and the concepts of progress. At the centre of this impressionistic fable of demise is a small community of superstitious farmers and shepherds. It is the era of the enclosure movement, where land is being mapped, agriculture commercialised and common rights lost. Who is to blame? The outside world invades the village in the form of a patriarchal aristocrat who wants to turn the land into a profitable business. On the inside, a fire that breaks out during the pagan harvest festival consumes the cohesion of the community. The villagers rush to find someone to blame, and are soon ready to violently persecute a trio of innocent strangers.
With fluid gender roles, ambivalent characters, scathing wit and surreal images – such as when the village children beat their heads against a stone to affirm their belonging – Tsangari adapts the Booker Prize-nominated novel by Jim Crace. Sean Price Williams uses grainy 16mm film and mainly natural light sources to create an atmosphere where idyll and brutality coexist. Harvest is a film much like a painting. An atemporal allegorical drama about xenophobia and unfettered capitalism.

Guest: Athina Rachel Tsangari

Content notes