On the Black Hill DVD, 1987

Based upon a novel by Bruce Chatwin, Andrew Grieve's On the Black Hill is one of the most deeply spiritual films in British cinema. This much is apparent from the film's opening, which juxtaposes the words of Revelation 21 (‘And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven .... And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it’) with a resplendent shot of the Welsh Black Mountains kissed by morning mist. The implication is clear: God is in this place and in the people who inhabit it.

The rest of the film elaborates upon this initial observation, as it presents episodes in the lives of two twin brothers born to one of the region's farming families at the turn of the Twentieth Century. In many respects, their lives are ones of extreme hardship – marked as they are by toil, isolation and impecuniousness – but, like the subjects of a Robert Flaherty documentary, the main characters approach these problems with stoicism and grace.

However, resilience in a harsh landscape is not the same as happiness in a harsh landscape; surviving is not the same as living. On this matter, Grieve presents an interesting thesis, which recalls the work of DH Lawrence. The main characters are at their most harmonious and honest when uniquely human concerns – such as class, nationality and wealth – are shattered against the windswept Welsh hills and replaced with animal concerns, such as the changing of the seasons and unmitigated sexual feeling. When the farmers lapse back into being human-all-too-human – as when the twins' father abandons their sister because she is pregnant by an Irishman – the only possible result is hurt and regret. On this account, Nature, and recourse to natural instinct, is the only answer to society's ills.

If the Welsh hills are a meeting-place of the austere and the sublime, then so too is the film's technique. Grieve's direction is unfussy, but as such is all the better to showcase Thaddeus O'Sullivan's breathtaking photography. And the performances, too, are understated, but their realism makes the film transcendent. In short, the end result is so radiant, poetic and insightful that it deserves wider attention.

Peter Hoskin on 24th December 2007
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Bruce Chatwin initially considered his novel about 80 years of rural family life in the Welsh border country unfilmable, but changed his mind when he saw how keen dire... more >

Bruce Chatwin initially considered his novel about 80 years of rural family life in the Welsh border country unfilmable, but changed his mind when he saw how keen director Andrew Grieve was to make it.

On the Black Hill begins in the late 19th century with the marriage of dour, puritanical Welsh farmer Amos Jones to his social superior, vicar’s daughter Mary Latimer. Her connections enable them to rent a vacant farm, The Vision, a situation that sets up an obvious cause for resentment in their relationship. It is against this background, along with a boundary feud with a malicious neighbour, that the twins Lewis and Benjamin grow up. Having come through
wars, romance and separation, they are still farming there eighty years later and still sharing the same bed.

Bob Peck as the gaunt, wild-eyed Amos Jones dominates the early scenes, though he is well matched by Gemma Jones as his wife Mary. With typical thoroughness, he immersed himself in the part, learning to ride, plough and hedge. However, it is when the film concentrates on the adult twins, men bound together by implicit understanding, that the film really finds its rhythm, as they cope with the vicissitudes of the land and the weather.

Making the best of a given situation was a theme that extended to the filming itself. A tight budget and a shoot of only seven weeks led to improvisation; locals and livestock were recruited to the film, most of the props were borrowed from people in the neighbourhood and even the local WI was marshalled to create knitting patterns of the correct period. This firmly locates the film in its region and, as Grieve says, gives it a strong sense of reality.

Surprisingly, Michael Powell excepted, few British directors have shown anything like a real feel or understanding of the countryside, but this is Grieve’s strength. Brought up in mid Wales, he has an eye for the region and rejects a view of it coloured by a nostalgic glow. In fact, with the film shot entirely in the Hay and Brecon area, it is perhaps the wonderful landscape that is the most eloquent character in the film. < less

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What a wonderful film and it has retained the spirituality of the book. I identify very strongly with the book, both sides of my family are from North Wales. Mum's sid... more >

What a wonderful film and it has retained the spirituality of the book. I identify very strongly with the book, both sides of my family are from North Wales. Mum's side were all hill famers. I also have two uncles, who are now 80 and they are identical twins to. Only my Uncle Emrys farmed, for many years his neighbours were elderly brothers who were the last farmers in North Wales to use horses. I also have family farming photographs from before WW1. I could certainly associate with soem of the characters in the film . My only complaint, not enough Cymraeg in the film. < less

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