IFFB 2014 opened tonight with BENEATH THE HARVEST SKY, a beautiful film about Casper and Dominic, best friends growing up in a farming town on the Canadian border, and a Harvest Week that changes their lives. The week off from school in Van Buren, Maine is an opportunity for Dominic to make some money working on the potato harvest, while Casper earns by working for his father, who's in the business of smuggling drugs across the border. The boys have a pact of sorts: pool the money they make to leave this small nowhere dead-end town and make their way in the world. Alas, the people closest to each of them all seem intent on keeping them there, one way or another.
The directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, soundtrack artist Dustin Hamman, and co-star Aidan Gillen (Tommy Carcetti of THE WIRE) were present for Q&A after and the directors mentioned their hope/goal was to make the kind of film that they grew up loving, a STAND BY ME or THE OUTSIDERS, that just doesn't seem to be made these days. I think they've succeeded in creating an heir to those films. Something true to the relationships of those films, but different in style, and excellent in style. The directors' previous work has been documentary, and that seems to inform what they've created in HARVEST SKY. It feels real.
It doesn't hurt any that Emory Cohen, who plays Caspar, is remarkable in his role. I think the proper critical non-hyperbolic hyperbole would be "a revelation." The directors explained that most people on set called Emory—or only knew him as—Caspar. Musician Dustin Hamman shared a story about spending a night in one of the film locations with Caspar, and when Emory, apparently ready to break character, offered to tell Dustin his real name. Dustin replied something like, "No, man. That's okay. I don't want to know." Why mess with the mojo, right?
Emory is really frickin good.
In power (please excuse the vague term) and style, casting and performances, minutes in, the film reminded me of WINTER'S BONE. It wasn't a deja vu thing in any way, and it really only crossed my mind once, but for me there's something sympathetic between the two films. Or at least my memory of them. Would make for a very satisfying double feature, if you're feeling up to some darkness with your coming-of-age stories.
