Gone to Earth

“Never turn around, or you risk dying on the spot…” is the written warning left by the late mother of Hazel, a young girl both beautiful and spirited, whose only friend is a little fox.

The film is set in 1897 in England. Gone to Earth by Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell is a Technicolor gem imbued with a highly lyrically imaginative visual and auditory air. You must follow this girl as she runs barefoot across the wilderness, her fox in her arms, both of them coveted objects of everyone’s desire. The ingenious duo of English directors creates a visually delirious, even magical, world around them. From the opening scene, everything is awe-inspiring, starting with the presence of nature, vibrant as a miracle. Trees speak to one another, animals slyly slip by and shadows of danger cut through the sunlight. We are swept into the world of fairy tales, of a childhood that seems impossible to leave behind. This is the very challenge facing the protagonist, who loves without restraint and goes through everything, nary a care in the world for danger–let alone mundane, all-too-violent reality. Gone to Earth explores this theme with great steadfastness through these lost characters, whose entire dilemma lies in understanding just how constantly they oscillate between a great victory and their own ruin, driven by the recklessness of rushing forward aggressively. Pressburger and Powell hold their camera steadily, just as a coachman or rider would grip the taut reins of a horse in a perpetual gallop, without knowing whether it will reach its destination or plunge into the ravine and destroy everything. Amid such considerable turmoil, there is no Manichaeism; the men reveal themselves to have varying characters, ranging from utter cowardice to great bravery. In this respect, the film offers one of cinema’s most powerful examples of necessary humiliation, to which we could issue the same warning… “Never turn around, or you risk dying on the spot…”

Virginie Apiou