Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest is intriguing, strange and visually interesting, but falters a little as a result of a somewhat messy narrative.
Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari
Genre: Drama
Run Time: 131′
Venice World Premiere: August 3, 2024
Release Date: TBA
Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest, an adaptation of Jim Crace’s novel of the same name, is a film that forgoes a distinct place or time for intrigue and strangeness. But it isn’t entirely successful, because while its premise and creative decisions are interesting and effective, its narrative is a bit too muddled for them to work as a cohesive whole.
Walt (Caleb Landry Jones, of Nitram) lives in a remote Scottish village, where life is simple and centered around harvesting the land owned by Master Kent (Harry Melling, of The Devil All the Time). But when a fire breaks out at Kent’s barn and three strangers are discovered and punished for it, things start to unravel around Walt. Distrust and suspicion are rife and only exacerbated when a cousin of Kent’s, Master Jordan (Frank Dillane, of The Essex Serpent), turns up with a claim to the land and no intentions of honouring the villagers’ ties to it.
The biggest issue with Harvest is that its central message comes across as a bit too muddled. There’s a real sense of an ‘outsiders vs us’ mentality within the village, a distrust to those not “our own” that permeates the whole place. Walt, strange in a way that’s different to everyone else around him, is still an incomer despite having been childhood friends with Master Kent and married to a local woman.
There’s a gentleness to him but also an edge, as he’s incredibly open with nature but guarded around people. His motivations are at the mercy of interpreting Landry Jones’ performance and narration, for there’s very little opportunity for Walt to properly express himself to those around him. The village feels insular, but Walt does not. While he participates in the almost ritualistic behaviour, there’s a palpable sense that he’s not as committed to the beliefs that the rest of his neighbours share.
It’s also a bit too long and a bit too meandering to maintain the intrigue that its premise provides. The opening sequence is almost ethereal, showing off the stunning landscape and Walt’s relationship with it, and then the fire in the barn is chaotic and tense. There are even sequences that feel almost hallucinatory, but then things plateau and slow down to a point that’s almost a little too simplistic. While there is certainly a mysterious quality and a sense of foreboding that never totally disappears, it does unfortunately become less of a focal point by the end as a result.
But Tsangari has crafted something that feels thematic and atmospheric for the most part despite those concerns. It’s a film that embraces nature, its environment and a tangible sense of place – if not time – that also understands how all of those things hinge on an emotional centre. Walt is an intriguing central character, and Landy Jones delivers a very committed and beguiling performance – even if the accent does slip from time to time – that matches everything else happening around him. While the other villagers might find their trust in Walt wavering, the audience does not.
Harvest’s use of language is interesting, a mix of poetically vague and almost disarmingly modern. (The use of “fud” might be too specific for audiences outside Scotland to fully appreciate.) It uses sound very well, from designer Nicolas Becker, and its off-kilter nature is matched by Sean Price Williams’ cinematography. But overall it just feels like Tsangari’s film is not quite the sum of its parts, stumbling a little with its pacing and general feeling of confusion, even if that confusion was exactly the point.
Harvest had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 3, 2024. Read our review of Queer!
