Far and Away 4K 1992 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

A red-haired, curly-haired beauty and a humble, penniless Irishman travel to the far West in search of happiness.

Review 4K Movie

I adore The Far Country, just to the point of memory loss. It's not just the story of two Irish kids fleeing to America in search of free land... It's like the story of my own growing up. Of how I myself changed over the years as I watched Joseph and Shannon change. It's a story...it's an epic story of a dream. The kind of dream that comes from childhood and lasts a lifetime. The kind that doesn't break, that doesn't give up. One that's ridiculous and stubborn at first, and then resolute and blossoming. And here it's also beautiful. Because the heroes were not just able to share their dream with each other - they originally had one, a common one. The dream of a cherished piece of land. As well as the dream of each other....

The movie is simply intoxicating in its childish naivety. All these absurdities, absurdities, it's as if they don't happen in life, it's as if it's not serious, and yet it happens. And you believe in it, as you believe in a child's game, in which everything is possible. Look at this... Joseph rides an inarticulate donkey to kill a tyrant landlord whom he has never seen before, to the hooting of the whole village, and behind his back hangs a rifle assembled from rusty pieces of iron that have fallen apart. The landowner turns out to be a drunkard, and has no idea what is going on in his domain. The scene alone, where the boy, wounded by the feisty landowner's daughter, waddles out of the stable, dragging his leg behind him, and waves his gun in front of the rich man in a nightdress, is worth a lot.

And of such lovely impossibilities, of which our beautiful life is made up, the whole movie consists. And it is funny, sad, touching to the point of tears, and you don't want to hold back these tears, because such beauty in movies you meet very rarely....

As well as such a love story. A love carried through a dream. Through hardship and deprivation, through one's own insecurity and pride, through class prejudice... And this love is so firmly intertwined with the story of pain, as the fingers of two little friends who dare to comfort each other are intertwined. For only children can love so fiercely and so cruelly. So much of it is so familiar! Hiding every movement of their souls, and picking a fight with anyone who looks askance. To cocksure, to show off, to alienate, to withdraw, to lose oneself... Just to be liked. “Tell me you like my hat!” And to give this man everything, and to be afraid to offer, because you can't bear it if he rejects you... And how much romance there is in it. Real, live, vital romance, not the one that is drawn in the photo against the background of the sunset with sweet music. These conversations at night, she on the bed, he on the floor on the mattress next to her, and the camera sails upwards: “What is your land like, Joseph?” That holey screen door she looks at him through when they change clothes before bed, and behind the wall the sighs of the prostitute neighbors at work... “Shannon is my sister.” This counting of their money, this close, kinship camaraderie, when you don't just depend on each other, but are secretly glad of it... And the climax - hungry and frozen Joseph and Shannon in someone else's fairy-tale house, crystal on the table, unreal light... As if you will never be completely sure whether it was true or dreamed.

Of course, the movie would not give birth to so much love if the viewer did not like these guys. It's not at all clear what Nicole Kidman's character likes. Shannon is cranky, feisty, arrogant, angular. Selfish beyond measure. As they say, “Ms. Nose up!” But I like her. And it's not because she's “modern.” She's desperate and brave. Shannon is real. In a doll's world kind of way.

And Joseph... He's a country boy, simple, rustic, naive. And so much light and warmth in him, and splashing, like a sunny stream, mental beauty, that behind all this as if hides unyielding male strength. And this strength is not in the childish “I will not fight with you”. Rather in the feeling of reliability near him, which is not easy to grasp and put into words.
And that's why for him, for the two of them, you worry as if it were your own life. Your land. Your dream, your love, so fragile and unbreakable, so amazing and so unique that no land is needed without it... And that is why, no matter how many times I watch this movie, I will not know whether Joseph will find the cherished land or die. And that's why every time that last shot and Enya's song behind it seem to be a rare revelation that I want to experience again and again.