In search of solace, I always turn to a film that will take me away from myself. I Know Where I’m Going! is, as you could absolutely guess if you didn’t know, a film about a journey. In this film from 1945, Joan (Wendy Hiller) a modern young woman with grand ideas, sets off by the sleeper train from Manchester to Scotland. Her stated destination is a Hebridean island where she plans to marry her wealthy industrialist fiance. But fate has other ideas in this magical film from the mercurial duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
The train journey is off-track from the start, tilted by Joan’s absurd bridal dreams, complete with Scottish hills draped in tartan, and the Archers’ whimsical camera trickery, which transforms a top hat into a smokestack. You just know that it’s curtains for Joan’s meticulous typewritten itinerary. In fact, danger awaits her in two forms: lethal waters, and true love. First, Joan’s progress is thwarted by bad weather: fog then high winds. During her enforced delay in Tobermory she meets the locals. There’s Catriona (Pamela Brown), a wonderfully wild woman who lives a full life without any of the material things that Joan holds far too dear. And mostly there’s Torquil (Roger Livesey), a magnetic local man on leave from the Royal Navy. This is what really puts Joan, and her plans, in peril. But why wouldn’t she want to be blown off course by such a man? A man who knows this magnificent scenery so well, and who so charmingly translates the Gaelic lyrics at a ceilidh: “You’re the maid for me.”
Pressburger wrote the film in a fit of enthusiasm, in a matter of days. It’s a romance, a tale of witchcraft and also what he called a “crusade against materialism”. Powell put it this way: “I think there is much more that goes on in life – below the surface – than people realise.” Powell had been besotted with the Scottish islands ever since making The Edge of the World in 1937, and he shares that passion here – it’s a film that will make you fall head over heels in love with its landscape.
The film was made in turbulent times, in 1944 during the last full year of the war. And this is a story about navigating a world we cannot control. We are all the mercy of forces beyond our ken. Love is one of them, and magic another. As Joan counts the beams on her bedroom ceiling she makes one wish, but those unknowable fates have already decided her destiny, the moment Torquil passed her a lit cigarette through an open window, and her engagement ring glinted through the swirling fog. The heavens mock human intervention: wish for a breeze and you’ll get a gale.
I Know Where I’m Going! offers up such portentous moments of mystical and romantic significance lightly, alongside comical asides and colourful eccentricity. It’s a disarming strategy, which tends to leave the audience every bit as bewitched as Joan. In this corner of the universe, anything might be possible, even an ancient curse. Despite the theme of delay, the film hums with momentum: the gathering winds and the rushing waters. Joan only thinks she’s stuck – life is carrying her along at a clip. And so, on every rewatch, the dramatic climax, with Joan and Torquil battling for their life in a boat tossed by a deadly whirlpool, reliably makes my heart beat faster.
As it turned out, I Know Where I’m Going! was released after war had ended. And also after the 1945 election, in which the British people voted for Clement Attlee’s Labour government in a landslide. It was a groundswell against what one commentator called “the religion of money”, which led to reforms including the creation of the National Health Service. It was a time when people began to believe in a new dawn after the horrors of war. I Know Where I’m Going! tells us to trust in the innate goodness of people, and reject the machinations of capitalism.
We’re seeking pleasure, rather than knowledge, so I will not spoil the ending, but I will tell you it is perfect, and it will nourish even the most fearful soul. It clears my head every time. The film’s most comforting message, wrapped up in this charming love story, is that our lives are indeed out of our hands, but the witches who control our destiny may be far less malevolent than we fear.
I Know Where I’m Going! is available to watch on Tubi, Amazon Prime and the Criterion Channel in the US and is available to rent digitally in the UK and watch on BBC iPlayer
