A Year In A Field

While watching Christopher Morris’s A Year In A Field I was reminded by an exchange in Yes Minister where they were discussing a serious subject, very seriously, of the utmost seriousness. It’s a fantastic piece of writing that lasts barely 35 seconds. Funny but also deadly earnest.

And that’s the main point of Morris’s film: that the ecology of the world is deadly serious and that we must all wake up to the realities of climate change.

Set over a year in a field (Winter Solstice 2020 to Winter Solstice 2021) in Cornwall with a standing Longstone – over 4,000 years old- as the fulcrum over some stunning images the narrator drones out the facts and the philosophy of what is happening to the world and homo sapiens i.e., climate change and our part in it.

The problem is that it’s explained with such a sanctimonious edge that it comes over as deadly dull and self-indulgent. Worse it’s incredibly patronising as if we (which is used a lot) have to catch up with him over the pending ecological disaster.

Granted the photography is beautiful the colours shine out and the use of long shots for the landscapes and sunrise over the four seasons that the film covers could have been spellbinding. But there’s a tendency to linger over dead rodents or tracking slugs and equally slow-moving creatures over objects to no real purpose. This slows the film down considerably making it increasingly frustrating to watch and engage with.

The use of traditional music is a given for this very rural based documentary, albeit with a world-wide perspective. So that tends to lock it down to the UK and probably Cornwall.

Climate change is no laughing matter the turmoil in the world’s weather systems, the loss of habitat and polar regions are proof enough that denial will spell oblivion.

This is an admirable go a trying something different and from a fresh perspective. But standing a year in a field feels as if it would have been shorter than this ninety-minute film.

A Year in a Field will be in UK cinemas from 22 September 2023.

Select screenings will be accompanied by Q&A’s with the film-makers including September 21st at the Cornwall Newlyn Filmhouse / 22nd at the Cardiff Chapter Arts Centre / 23rd at the Bristol Watershed / 24th at Exeter Phoenix / 25th at Liverpool FACT / 26th at Glasgow’s GFT / 27th at the Newcastle Tyneside / 28th at Leeds Hyde Park cinema.