Hidden Gems - A month in the country | Mechanics' Institute

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Hidden Gems - A month in the country

Do not look for a plot in this movie – you will not find one. Do not look for excitement either. You will not find any in this quietly beautiful, slow-paced, and thoughtful film. Disregard all summaries or descriptions, you find on the DVD container (or online). I have no idea what they're talking about or if the people who wrote these even saw the movie. 


Two survivors of the battlefields of the First World War meet in a small, quiet English town, then fall into a friendship. They interact with the townspeople as best they can, they struggle to fit into the new, alien (for them) environment and to re-enter a society in which no one but each other can understand their experience. One of them spends his days restoring a 500-year-old mural in the town's church. This mural restoration acts as a metaphor for the peeling back of layers to reveal what's hidden beneath – perhaps the rediscovery of their pre-war selves and the reintegration of these earlier personas into their present day lives?  No high drama, no heavy interpersonal conflicts, the title of the film says it all.  A Month in the Country is about precisely that – a month in a small English countryside community. It's about life, death, art, history, beauty, hope, recovery and change. 

Posted on Apr. 17, 2023 by Steven Dunlap