Movie Review: Gone to Earth

Rating: 4/5

Michael Powell frequently made films that pitted his characters against a harsh, but beautiful, natural world. The nuns of Black Narcissus had to contend with living in the remote Himalayas, the simple fishermen in The Edge Of The World were forced to come to terms with their way of life dying out due to their remote surroundings and in I Know Where I'm Going!, English social climber Joan Webster found her well laid plans perpetually delayed by an angry sea. Gone to Earth has a similarly specific sense of place, but here Powell (working again with Emeric Pressburger) sets up the civilized world, rather than the natural world, as the harsh and unyielding force.

Hazel (Jennifer Jones) is a young gypsy woman living with her father in the English countryside in the late 1800's. She keeps a book of spells and charms with her and cares deeply for her pet fox (named, appropriately, Foxy). Unfortunately for Hazel, she attracts the attention of an English nobleman named John Reddin (David Farrar) who desires to take Hazel for his own. Reddin, like many an English noble, hunts foxes for sport. Hazel, of course, finds this abhorrent and wants nothing to do with him.


She does agree to marry, though, for the sake of moving out of her father's house. Hazel swears to the mountain to marry the first man who asks her. So, of course, she does get asked for her hand in marriage: the local reverend, Edward Marston (Cyril Cusack), asks for her hand and she fulfills her vow and agrees. Even after going through with this marriage, Reddin continues his pursuit of Hazel, even though she clearly despises him and everything he stands for.

This curious love triangle sits at the heart of the film. Hazel is a woman who lives in harmony with the natural world around her and both of her suitors are seeking to change her (to trap her) in their own way. The minister is actually kind to Hazel, but he still seeks to domesticate her and, notably, to convert her to Christianity. The nobleman, on the other hand, initially tries to tempt her with material pleasures (telling her that she can have a new dress from London every week were she to live with him). Both views are, of course, at odds with what Hazel actually wants as both men are at odds with the natural world. The minister wants to civilize nature while the noble seeks to crush it under his heel.



This tragic melodrama makes Gone to Earth a powerful and touching film and an underrated entry in the Archers canon. As played by Jennifer Jones, Hazel is not a drab sufferer of injustices but a proud, vibrant woman who seeks only to live her life in peace and happiness with the world around her. But "the world's a big spring trap with us in it," as Hazel herself says and no matter how hard she tries she can't escape that trap.

It would be impossible to write about a Powell & Pressburger film without raving about the cinematography and Gone to Earth boasts some of their most beautiful Technicolor work. The interiors are often glowing and orange by fireplace and the forests shrouded in mist. The colors and compositions effectively make the world appear as Hazel sees it: enchanting and wondrous. The wider shots also establish the diminutive nature of man against nature, with people often framed under sprawling tree branches, skies and rolling green hills.


Hazel's mother once told her that the only thing that comes from marriage is "tears and torment" and the men in the film prove her right. It's unfortunate that Gone to Earth isn't more widely available, as it stands as a beautifully shot and powerfully told fairy tale of a woman, who only wants to keep to herself and live at peace with nature, trapped by marriage and crushed by civilization.





Gone to Earth is available on a region free Korean DVD and a region locked British DVD. It has also, as of this writing, been posted in its entirety on YouTube.

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