It is no secret that the small towns in America are dying, especially those in the most remote areas of the country. It isn’t the first place to experience the phenomena and probably won’t be the last. 1937’s The End of the World takes place on one of Scotland’s Orkney isles, which the Romans called “The Edge of the World”. It is an abandoned island Niall MacGinnis to which arrives with Michael Powell and Frankie Reidy, a couple who has apparently chartered him and his sailboat for some sightseeing. At the top of a cliff is a marker for one “Peter Manson. Gone over.” This prompts MacGinnis to regale the others with a story of ten years prior when there was still a community there.
MacGinnis knows of life there years before because that is where he was born and grew to manhood. He was wooing Belle Chrystall, the sister of best friend Eric Berry. John Laurie is the father of Chrystall and Berry, and, collectively, they are the Manson family, which never stops sounding strange. MacGinnis’s father is Finlay Currie and they are the Grays. The surnames are reinforced in the opening credits, with the main cast members listed by their families, as if we’re about to watch them compete on Family Feud.
A problem arises when Berry decides to leave the island and find his fortune on the mainland. I think it is interesting a recurring element of the plot is a superstition that, if one can ever see the hills of Scotland from the island, that is an ill portent. It is like their fragile community is only safe when their world is restricted to only their island.
It is on one such occasion Chrystall sees the mainland that Berry announces his intention to move off the island. MacGinnis is furious he will reduce the pool of working men even further, and so challenges him to a race up a terrifying seaside cliff. Apparently, climbing that was a traditional challenge for men to test their mettle, only this time will be without ropes. I found it stupefying the village desperately needs men who can do backbreaking labor, yet this deadly challenge is something that must be done. Actually, Currie isn’t happy with his son participating, while Laurie will be disappointed in Berry if he doesn’t.
It isn’t a surprise Berry dies in the attempt, given MacGinnis is telling this story from the vantage point of ten years later. What is even more unfortunate is Laurie refuses to even acknowledge MacGinnis’s presence for months afterwards. The wedding plans of MacGinnis and Chrystall are scuttled, but that doesn’t stop them from having sex on some rocks that look to be the single most uncomfortable place to get your freak on that I have seen in any movie, and I am including in that statement the spiral staircase in The Room.
MacGinnis thinks he can force a reconciliation with her father by announcing his intention to leave, but Laurie doesn’t voice any opposition. With that, Chrystall spends a great deal of time staring ominously into the turbulent surf at the base of high cliffs. Eventually, she puts a letter in a tiny boat to which she attached a weird balloon that I assume is an inflated sheep stomach. There has to be a more efficient mail delivery system than this, even with the isolation of this isle. Also, I like to imagine the terror of the recipient of anybody today receiving a balloon of this type for any occasion. Imagine a kid’s birthday party decorated with inflated sheep stomachs.
This method of sending a letter is so inefficient that Laurie retrieves it from the sea. I will give you zero guesses as to the content. That Laurie reacts gently to the news his daughter is carrying MacGinnis’s child shows the man is not a wall.
The scene is wordless, and much of this film feels similar to some silent cinema. At times, the film seems to have little more than the sound of the wind, with brief interludes of dialogue. At least, that’s how it feels immediately afterwards.
It helps that much of the imagery gathered on the island of Foula is so gorgeous as to make words superfluous. One of the first images we see is a sailboat on the other side of tall, craggy rock, and we see it traverse a curiously round opening in the middle of that. The shadows of clouds pass over rolling hills. An incredibly long crossfade of Chrystall’s face to a shot of turbulent waters has a subliminal effect of the breakers taking the form of parts of her visage. Women in black shrouds watch the cliff-climbing competition while interspersed on rocks and looking not entirely unlike emperor penguins.
That cliff race is a spectacular sequence and it alone is a good reason to seek out this picture. It is astonishing anybody allowed themselves to be in the precarious places the two men traverse. I don’t care how they got either the actors or stand-ins to these precipices, but it looks incredibly dangerous. Laurie has an interesting bit I also wouldn’t do, and that is he rescues a sheep from a drop steep enough to require a rope, and he just slings the thrashing animal on his back, where it stays for the ascent.
One mundane aspect of the film I wondered about is when the sheep are sheared, and that is the absence of shears. I hope just yanking off the wool, as we see here, isn’t painful to the sheep. Something I am very glad we don’t see is the fate of the island’s dogs when the entire community decides to surrender and migrate to the mainland; namely, Laurie coldly announces the animals will all be drowned.
I guess cold logic like that is necessary in an environment such as that shown in The End of the World. This is a world of harsh realities, such as the commercial fishing trawlers which accelerated the end of this rural community. As Laurie observes, those coal-powered ships are fishing the sea dry with their nets and, once an area is emptied, they have to go farther out to sea, which requires more coal, which further reduces profits. Not only did he anticipate what that industry has done to the oceans in the present day, but he provides a succinct diagnosis of a fatal flaw of runaway capitalism. And that helps to kill small communities everywhere, whether in the Orkneys or in the American Midwest.
Dir: Michael Powell
Starring Niall MacGinnis, Belle Chrystall, John Laurie
Watched on BFI UK blu-ray (region B)