Gone To Earth (Powell & Pressburger, 1950): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6pm
70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 1
Today is the opening day of the London Film Festival. With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews,
so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics
who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.
So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the
reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I
am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within
the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the
major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is
little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see
films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London
Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming
months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.
Here then (from October 7th to October 18th) are the films you are likely
to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in
London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't
worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always
some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each
screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.
Time Out review:
A film much maligned in its time, not
least by producer David O Selznick, who issued an American version
retitled The Wild Heart,
incorporating additional footage directed by Rouben Mamoulian and
running only 82 minutes. Mary Webb's 1917 novel was the archetypal
bodice-ripper - wicked squire, pious yokels, adultery and redemption -
out of which Powell and Pressburger made a visually spellbinding
romance. Christopher Challis'
photography evokes Shropshire and the Welsh borders so that you can
smell the earth. Menace, the bloodlust of the chase (of the fox or the
outcast sinner), is omnipresent as trees bend and wild creatures panic
before an unseen primal force. Cruelty besides beauty sweeps these
pastoral vistas. Forget Jennifer Jones' rustic English (Kentucky? Australian?)
and the melodramatic clichés (boots trampling posies): the haunting,
dreamlike consistency recalls that other fairy story of innocence and
menace, The Night of the Hunter.
Martin Hoyle
Here (and above) is an extract.
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