I Know Where I'm Going! (1947)

Truly Dreadful Film

Awesome Movie

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Legendary directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are best known for their glorious Technicolor achievements. Their impressive careers delivered the likes of The Thief of Bagdad, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman, all sumptuous and sweeping pictures that now feel way ahead of their time. Earlier in their careers, they were also responsible for 'smaller' films set in and around Powell's native Britain (Pressburger was born in Austria-Hungary but died in the country he spent most of his working life in). One such film, from 1945, is I Know Where I'm Going!, a charming little romantic drama set on the Scottish Hebrides.Ambitious and headstrong young Englishwoman Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) has known how her life will pan out ever since she was a little girl. Much to the concern of her father (George Carney), she is to marry wealthy, and much older, industrialist Sir Robert Bellinger, who owns a lavish home on the remote island of Kiloran. When she arrives by boat on a nearby island, the area is so thick with fog that to complete the last leg of her journey would be an impossible and life-threatening task. As a result, Joan is forced to wait for better weather on the Isle of Mull, where she meets handsome young naval officer Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey), who is on shore leave and also trying to make it to Kiloran. The weather doesn't improve, and the more time Joan spends with her new acquaintance, the more torn she becomes between ambition and love.Powell and Pressburger made films in colour prior to 1945, but I Know Where I'm Going! isn't any less visually inspiring due to being shot in black-and-white. Cinematographer Erwin Hillier (who had worked with the directors on A Canterbury Tale) captures the Hebrides as a cold, unforgiving part of the world, lashed by constant rain storms and its inhabitants threatened by a nearby whirlpool. Yet it's also serene, untouched by the modern world, albeit invaded by unwanted rich folk. Of course, it's all a metaphor for Joan's emotions, as she decides between the calmer, gentler lands on which she currently walks or braving the dark, dangerous unknown. She claims to know just where she's going, but does her heart tell her otherwise? Events won't surprise you, but you'll be swept up in the film's flow and sentiment nevertheless. Hiller and Livesey form an attractive couple with plenty of chemistry, and Hillier's camera will have you swooning over the locations.

The Archers' (Powell and Pressburger) Black-and-White romance, shot during wartime, just prior to their foray into Technicolor. In the center stage of it is a middle-class English woman Joan Webster (Hiller), accentuated by the titular motto, she is a headstrong city gal, endowed with a limpid mind, and always knows what she wants ever since she is a little girl (real silk stockings). After a succinct prologue traversing through her childhood to adulthood, now at the age of 25, Joan is going to marry a magnate of chemical business, and their wedding will be held in the (fictitious) Isle of Kiloran, but there is a catch, is this affluent but much older fiancé is the right man for her? That is the time-honored dilemma sets to disorient the self-willed soul of Joan, with a little help of a well-timed gale standing between her and the island, ever so close, but cannot reach, nature has unleashed a warning sign of this matrimony. Thus, after traveling from Manchester through sundry methods of transports, Joan is stuck in the Isle of Mull, impatiently waits for the blustering gale to lull, and she meets the local denizens and a tinge of romance troublingly budding between her and Torquil MacNeil (Livesey), a navy officer who plans to spend his furlough on Kiloran as well, a subplot concerns an ancient curse subjected to the laird of Kiloran would serve as a sterling springboard for the pair to realize their true feelings for each other. But, their chemistry, the magic that leaves one's heart palpitating with hankering doesn't make for a leavening feeling of entrancement, albeit Hiller's emotive rendition is pitch- perfect and bursting with niceties. So Joan, portrayed as a self-seeking and reckless woman purported by the modern air of independence, falls for a nondescript character like Torquil (easy- going but blue-blooded) as a contingency when she has learned a lesson from her own mistake of preferring monetary security to a more organic life, the eloquence is rather deficient, conversely it also makes Torquil's choice of Joan, a city girl with glamour, over his long-time friend Catriona Potts (a shimmering Pamela Brown), an expansive huntress, sounds awkwardly hypocritical, the film's ethnographic message certainly hits the right mark, but its sex politics fails to launch in afterthought. Be that as it may, the film is an absolute gas to behold, not the least for its sterling cinematography, elemental and picturesque (makes one wonder what it would look like if it were shot in colors), particularly, the eye-opening, studio-bounded money shots of the monstrous Corryvreckan whirlpool, starkly conjures up its cinematic allure for progeny to ponder about The Archers' studious work ethic and their state-of-the-art craftsmanship.

I can't remember the exact quote but Michael Powell once said that with a film all you can do is make it in the hope that something magical will come and nest in it. He certainly did that with 'I know where I am going' and 'A Canterbury Tale.'I am not sure I have much to add with my encomium but re-watching 'I know where I am going' I was struck with what today would be called the sheer "emotional intelligence" of the film. It is so rare in the cinema today and long gone from the British Broadcasting Corporation or general British film-making which decades ago used to make fine adaptations of good British novels. The plot and characters have already been well rehearsed in previous threads so there is no need to go into that, but I say again how rare these days a film such as this is. In both films, the scenes are not just well shot, the acting so perfect but they are so well-written. The main characters of these films are interesting and intelligent and whom, if they were real, you would love to have as your friends or acquaintances and upon whose continuing story you would always want to be updated. And if they were not, you would eagerly await the next film or novel to continue their tale. The BBC has largely given up drama for one-dimensional soaps and when a 'worthy' English or American film comes along, as they still do occasionally, it is usually a film about manners or just plain sentimentalism. Worthy but dull and lifeless. Not just still life but stiff life.Steven Spielberg can and does occasionally make intelligent films but they are, I think and feel, still left asleep at the post in comparison with Powell and Pressburger.A film which is as stimulating as a good novel is the best of ambitions but with the age of Powell and Pressburger now past so I fear is either the ambition or the ability. Incidentally, also on show in these two films, Powell once complimented his colleague Emeric Pressburger for having a perfect feel for the 'shape of a scene'.If there is such a place as Heaven and I get there I hope they will have made lots more such films for me to enjoy; films which are food for the spirit and mind as well as heart to enjoy.

If I was putting it in a double bill, it would be, not with another Scottish film, but with 'The Peaceful Man', set in Ireland, or 'Gone to Earth', set on the English/ Welsh border country.Heck, let's call it a triple bill!The essential qualities are: beautiful countryside: real people, albeit some a little unusual: excellent acting from fine actors - and, most importantly, a story that may not be new but is neither hackneyed nor trite.If you want a period film that's not a 'just-so' story - where there aren't necessarily good guys who always do the right thing, and bad guys who are obvious villains, and macguffins round every corner - well, here it is.