This week's movie pick is a tribute to my recent hiking holiday in the Scottish Highlands. If you found the book or movie of Eat, Pray, Love a bit saccharine, then Powell and Pressburger's charming 1945 movie I Know Where I'm Going is the perfect antidote. Unlike Elizabeth Gilbert, Joan Webster, played by the indomitable Wendy Hiller, has her whole life mapped out and she knows exactly where she's going - up to Scotland by train and then by boat to a remote island where she plans to marry one of the richest men in England. Except bad weather keeps her on the mainland, and in the company of a naval officer who is determined to thwart her plans and change the course of her life. But what these two works do share - and why travelling is such great fun - is the important lesson that one should always be completely open to chance and change, in whatever guise it appears. The movie, though in black and white, has spectacular shots of the Scottish landscape; much of it was shot on the Isle of Mull and among the Hebrides.
Having spent a week bagging Munros and Corbetts in unseasonably sunny weather, I can attest to the utter beauty of this area from all heights. And yes, I ate (and ate and ate - salmon, lamb, venison, Scottish flapjack and lots of chocolate) and while I'm not particularly religious, how could you not climb up through the clouds to a view like this and not feel spiritual?
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| Not even a third of the way up Ben Nevis yet, but how beautiful is this? |
4 comments:
Maylin, Your trip looks fabulous! Hope you made it to the top and thanks for the movie recommendation.
I did make it to the top - a couple of hours later! But it was worth it, the views were spectacular.
My parents honeymooned on Ben Nevis!
WOW! Now, that's love. But I've found that walkers are sometimes more compatible in terms of their views on life and living in the moment than people who share a lot of other interests in common. Not a single person of the group that I hung out with for a week had a facebook account or a twitter account, which I found refreshing. Why would we want to post about our lives, they'd argue - we're too busy living them.
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