The Edge of the World

A film set on an island in the north of Scotland. The island is small and hard to reach. Fishing no longer supports it; the large boats work offshore and the islanders cannot compete. The young want to leave, the old to stay. The argument sharpens between two families. Between a father who argues for staying and a young man who argues for leaving, the matter is settled by a contest: whoever reaches the top of the cliff first will have his way. The race ends badly and the island is never the same. From there the narrative watches a community come slowly apart: the families leave one by one, the houses empty and the school closes. The source is a real event. An island in the North Atlantic was evacuated entirely in 1930 and its people moved to the mainland. It was shot on an island hard to reach for most of the year. The crew stayed there for months; the weather, the sea and the cliffs made the conditions severe. John Laurie, Belle Chrystall and Finlay Currie are in the cast. Michael Powell directed; it counts as his first personal film, having worked on small productions before. The cliffs, the bird colonies and the sea are used in the photography like documentary. An important production for anyone who likes fiction close to documentary and early British cinema. For a viewer expecting pace, the film gives a great deal of time to landscape and community life.