Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is a woman who always knows where she’s going. Or at least she does when we meet her at the start of Powell and Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going! Now restored on 4K and freshly added to the Criterion Collection, this mystical romance set in the Scottish Hebrides remains a delight, 80 years on from its initial release.
At 25 years old, Joan Webster is a prim and proper Englishwoman. She has a plan for her life, which she believes in following to the letter, and getting engaged to wealthy industrialist Sir Robert Bellinger is the next step in the blueprint. Bellinger lives on the Hebridean Isle of Kilorn, and so Joan packs her bags and boards a train up North. However, upon reaching the Isle of Mull, there are some major blocks in the journey. The first comes in the form of gale force winds. The second comes in the form of naval officer, and Laird of Kilorn, Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey).
What follows is a classic fish-out-of-water story as a fully out of her depth Joan must learn to understand the locals on the islands, whose lives and values are so wildly different than her own, as she waits out the time until she can travel on to Kilorn. Of course, the more time she spends with MacNeil, the less she knows what she wants and what she’s doing. Hiller and Livesey are perfect foils to each other: Hiller’s stern resolve melting away slowly due to Livesey’s incredible warmth. While at times Joan’s cold demeanour make the love story feel ill-paced, there is undoubtedly a great chemistry between the pair. Individually, they manage to draw a lot of character from a limited space, filling in the gaps between the dialogue with ease.
Heightening the sense of romance is the setting. The choice to mostly shoot on location is one that is tangibly felt, and the windy highlands can’t help but feel mystical, gothic, and bubbling with a magic beneath the surface. The talk of curses and legends can’t help but feel truthful due to where we find ourselves. This is further expressed through the way in which the visual aesthetic heavily leans into magical realism, such as an enchanting early scene in which Joan finds herself dreaming on the train. With layers of different film composited over each other, the effect is something affecting and unsettling. Shooting on black-and-white film always adds to the haunting nature of this romance.
This film was made in the interim period of waiting for funding for A Matter of Life and Death , and, admittedly, it can feel as though this was written in four days. However, the simplicity of the narrative allows the rugged edges to come across as charming rather than messy. The film is less preoccupied with its plot, and more with making you feel a part of its world, sweeping you up into the winds and waves, and inviting you into the community that Joan finds herself in. Moments like an extended scene set at a local ceilidh demonstrate this; as MacNeil explains the dances to Joan she slowly falls for him, but it also explains this culture to the audience who may find it a foreign concept, and asks them to participate in their own way.
However, in spite of its flaws, it remains utterly endearing, and it is easy to see how it earned its place in the Criterion Collection. If you stay even just for the way your heart will leap at the pair’s first kiss, it is well worth watching. I would invite you to watch beyond that though, and feel the enchantment and mysticism of the Scottish Hebrides that Powell & Pressburger so effortlessly capture.
4K Ultra HD Blu-ray boxset special features
- New 4K digital restoration by the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation, supervised by filmmaker Martin Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Audio commentary featuring film historian Ian Christie
- Introduction by Scorsese with restoration demonstration featuring commentary by Schoonmaker Powell
- Behind-the-scenes stills narrated by Schoonmaker Powell
- I Know Where I’m Going! Revisited, a 1994 documentary by Mark Cousins
- Photo-essay by writer Nancy Franklin exploring the locations used in the film
- Home movies from one of director Michael Powell’s Scottish expeditions, narrated by Schoonmaker Powell
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Imogen Sara Smith
The Criterion edition of I Know Where I’m Going! is available from 15 December
