The Edge of the World

Belle Chrysall and Eric Berry

Michael Powell's The Edge of the World, from 1937, is the first of his films to bear a personal stamp. Set on the island of Foula just west of the Shetland archipelago, the film is concerned thematically with the depopulation of the outer islands of Scotland. Two clans react differently to their dying way of life in which the island folk subsist on fishing, sheep herding, and crofting. The split in the community on whether to continue their seemingly doomed way of life leads to tragedy, particularly for Powell's young lovers Ruth (Belle Chrysall) and Andrew (Niall Macginnis). Throughout the picture, Powell's reverence for the traditional rural life of Great Britain emanates from the screen. 

That reverence is balanced with a frank depiction of the hardships brought by living on the island. Powell employs a documentary approach that verges on neo-realism. Indeed, a majority of the film's players were non-professional. The toil of those he depicts is stressed whether they are islanders laboriously extracting peat, shepherds climbing down steep rock to rescue their flock or coal stokers plying their trade on fishing trawlers. Powell regards them objectively, but with compassion and that makes all the difference. The expressionism of his later work makes only fleeting appearances, particularly when a superimposition of waves crashing on the island's rocky shore is layered over the face of Ruth as she contemplates suicide.

The plot of The Edge of the World is laden with melodramatic elements: two falls to doom from a rocky cliff, stern patriarchs, an unplanned pregnancy, an emergency tracheotomy, and, of course, a storm tossed sea. All of this crammed into 80 minutes! Powell contrasts this with moments of repose and reflection amidst the flora and fauna. Parishioners and their dogs wait patiently during an interminable sermon. A dance celebrates the birth of a child. Mankind resides with both sheep and hawks, life and death in a beauteous and terrifying setting. An essential film.