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Another Time, Another Place
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Another Time, Another Place is a fascinating, affecting film which can really creep up on you. In cinema terms, it unfolds somewhere between Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978) and Terence Davies’ Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988). Adapted from Jessie Kesson’s novel, it’s a slow, elemental, stylised rendering of the tremulous relationship between a young, Scottish woman (Phyllis Logan – later of TV’s Downton Abbey – as Janie) and three Italian Prisoners of War billeted on her farm. That line-up: Luigi (Giovanni Mauriello), Umberto (Gianluca Favilla) and Paolo (Claudio Rosini). Romantic drama ripens very gradually amidst the ordeals of the working day, the movements of the weather, and the conservative community’s rituals. Approaching the work of director Michael Radford (now in his late 70s) through the doors of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) or Il Postino (1994) is an ill-advised course of action. Another Time, Another Place, his debut narrative feature, is the only one I would ever wish to revisit. © Adrian Martin June 1990 / September 2024 |
