Sheep farming is having a moment at the movies. Following closely on the heels of Irish-made documentary Notes from Sheepland, this experimental British drama also puts shepherding and farming right at the centre of its story, but with a quite different result. The Old Man and the Land, directed by Nicholas Parish, is the glummer of the two, offering a melancholy portrait of a rural family unravelling like an old jumper.
The elderly gent of the title (played by non-professional Roger Marten) never speaks a word throughout. Instead, we watch him tending to his flock, helping the ewes to lamb, walking the fields and doing all the daily drudgery of farm work while the soundtrack plays the answering-machine messages from his two grown children. Eldest child Laura (Emily Beecham) and younger son David (Rory Kinnear) are heard but never seen squabbling in person as they argue over who should inherit the land when Dad dies, while other monologues from each float in the air, bedded down with a keening, murmuring, cello-forward soundtrack composed by Evelyn Sykes.
