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Released by: Twilight Time
Released on: July 14, 2015
Director: Pat O'Connor
Cast: Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh, Jim Carter, Patrick Malahide, Natasha Richardson
Year: 1987
Purchase From Screen Archives
The Movie:
The year is 1920, and Britain is on the mend after World War I. In the Yorkshire town of Oxgodby, an emotionally scarred combat veteran named Tom Birkin (Colin Firth) is enlisted by Reverend Keach (Patrick Malahide) to restore a medieval mural in Keach's church. The gig is akin to slave labor; not only is Birkin being paid a pittance, but he's required to live in the church's belfry for the duration of the job, despite the fact that Keach and his wife, Alice (Natasha Richardson), have plenty of room in their spacious home. Birkin's temporary neighbors include archaeologist James Moon (Kenneth Branagh), who lives in a tent next to the church as he ferrets out the location of some historically significant grave or other. Birkin develops a friendship of sorts with him, as he does with Alice and local stationmaster Jack Ellerbeck (Jim Carter). The latter and his family, in fact, make Birkin a regular guest at their Sunday dinners, eventually talking him into giving a sermon at their own church. In due course, Birkin restores the mural (which resembles the work of Maurice Sendak by way of Heironymus Bosch) and helps Moon find the grave he's been looking for. Alice then brings Birkin some apples, one of which he eats as he slowly and significantly leaves town on foot, never to return.
Based on a successful 1980 novel by J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country was originally slated for a BBC adaptation but wound up getting the big-screen treatment from Britain's Channel 4 Films instead. The result exemplifies how people who don't like British period pieces tend to see them—beautifully shot, reeking of class, and brimming with superb performances, all the while depicting a world in which nobody does much and nothing very interesting ever happens.
The film was generally well-regarded at the time of its release, then quickly forgotten. Time has proven it more significant as cinema history than as cinema art, marking as it did both the big-screen debut of Kenneth Branagh and the first filmic lead for future Oscar Winner Colin Firth (The King's Speech, 2011). There's also the sadly gone-too-soon Natasha Richardson, who had broken into major films the year before as Mary Shelley in Ken Russell's Gothic. And as an added bonus, there's some impressive acting on display by one Jim Carter, who would, a mere twenty-three years later, attract worldwide notice with his role as butler Charles Carson in the hit British TV series Downton Abbey.
All of this film-trivia goodness came very close to being lost forever, it seems. Apparently, nobody in 1987 considered the film worth keeping track of, and by the time it soaked in that it had a degree of noteworthiness, there was nary a print to be found. Fortunately, a year of dedicated sleuthing by rabid fan Glyn Watkins resulted in the discovery of a 35mm print in 2004. The story of said discovery (way more interesting than the film itself) is told in a February 21, 2005 Daily Telegraph piece entitled "How I Found Branagh's Lost Movie," which can be accessed in the time it takes to Google the title.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Twilight Time has brought A Month in the Country to Blu-ray with an MPEG-4 AVC encode in 1080p high definition. The film is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Given the general lack of extras, the disc provides plenty of space to house the film. That doesn't mean, however, that the film looks perfect. It must be remembered that original elements were nowhere to be found, leaving the team remastering the film in hi-def only 35mm elements to work with. That said, the image looks relatively good, though there appears to have been some digital enhancement. Regardless, it isn't as problematic as it sounds. There's a fair amount of grain in some shots, mostly during darker sequences, giving it enough of a film-like quality. The bigger issue is the director's use of soft-focus cinematography, particularly whenever Colin Firth is on screen. (Was the intent to give Firth an angelic appearance?) During such scenes, and with the digital enhancements, fine detail is completely washed away. When the film isn't soft, there's a general increase in detail, and given that the whole thing was shot on-location in beautiful English locales, the lush scenery does look gorgeous.
The film comes with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track, which is an improvement over the video. The sound levels are a little off, but unfortunately there are no subtitles to provide assistance in making out dialogue when it dips a little too low (a rarity for Twilight Time). For those interested, Howard Blake's score, along with the sound effects, are placed on a separate audio track in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. And finally, film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman provide an audio commentary in which they discuss the film's complicated history, alluded to above, as well as the actors, the church in which the film takes place, the book on which the film is based, and the author of said book, among other things. They do such a great job of dissecting the film and everything related to it that the movie is better played with the commentary on!
There aren't many extras, but there is a theatrical trailer running a little over two minutes and an on-screen catalog of Twilight Time releases, noting, as usual, which are still available and which have gone into moratorium at the time of pressing.
For further reading on the subject of the film, check out Kirgo's liner notes, which come in an eight-page booklet accompanying the BD. The notes are beautifully written and researched, proving once again just how talented and erudite on the subject of film Kirgo is.
The Final Word:
A Month in the Country is chock full of talented British thespians just beginning their careers, but that really isn't enough to save it. It's more interesting for its tortured history than for anything that happens onscreen. If you want to see Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh, Natasha Richardson, and Jim Carter before they were famous, A Month in the Country is the place to start. It features the promise of young actors finding their voices, even if the director and screenwriter were unable to give them an appropriate showcase. Thankfully, there's a terrific commentary and fantastic liner notes to make the experience a more pleasant one.
Christopher Workman is a freelance writer, film critic, and co-author (with Troy Howarth) of the Tome of Terror horror film review series. Volume 2 of that series, which covers the 1930s, is currently available from Midnight Marquee Press, Inc., with Volume 1, covering the 1920s, due out later this year.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
