While doing her rounds in the Scottish countryside, Doctor Caroline Lamar comes upon a hitchhiker, and offers him a lift. Young Danish backpacker Mike Hammershoi explains that he is looking for work in the area, and so she points him in the direction of Black's farm, an isolated steading. Francis Black, the owner, who is blind, and lives there with his ailing mother Bella, and enigmatic young wife Rachel, tells Mike he can work in the yard. But put off by the foreboding atmosphere, Mike declines. A chance encounter with Rachel, however, persuades him to stay and settle in. Since the accident that blinded him two years earlier, Francis has become incresingly bitter, and sensing hs young wife's attraction to the stranger, orders him to leave. But rather than force them apart, Mike's imminent departure only serves to bind teh two in a passionate relationship that will ultimately have dark consequences for them all.
Acting
Peter Mullan's volcanic bitterness; Jodhi May's guarded longing.
Direction
Eleanor Yule's patient, suffocating Scottish Gothic atmosphere.
Cinematography
Bleak landscapes that feel like they're watching back.
Director
Eleanor Yule
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Yule's background in documentary brings uncomfortable realism to this Scottish Gothic, rejecting romanticism for something more punishing. The farm itself becomes a character—claustrophobic despite its isolation.
Shot in just three weeks on a real Borders farm; Berthelsen learned basic Gaelic farm commands to sell his Danish drifter's integration. The bleak weather? Genuine Scottish summer.
GB
