Film by Joanna Hogg set on the semi tropical Tresco estate in Cornwall. A mother and her two grown up children are on holiday before the son goes away to Africa for a year, as a volunteer adviser on the treatment of Aids. The family is joined during the day by the (real life) artist Christopher Baker, who is teaching them in painting the local landscape.
Baker is a quiet observer of the fractures that open within the family. I enjoyed his relaxed remarks of encouragement in making of work - for example,
"Think what you want to say , but be open for chaos to intervene and take over."
" You have only so much energy, listen to it and don't abuse it."
Was this supposed to have a wider relevance, I wonder?
At one point he talks to the son, who is feeling uncertain about whether he is right to abandon his high paid City job for the journey to Africa. Baker himself says that, as a young man, he had great passion for his art, but he was advised not to go to art school because he was "not tough enough". He had an inner determination and vision but it might not survive in the competitive environment of an art education. Instead he followed his path in a different way, and it has been a success for him. Interesting how the conventional wisdom is not always the right way.
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