April 2016
37
FARMING ON THE SILVER SCREEN When you’re asked to list films with a farming link and only one that
comes to your head is a 2016 epic, you know you’re in for the long haul. Come on you budding Spielbergs – count down our top films with a farming link with us. They’re out of this world.
THE MARTIAN In short, it’s about a bloke who gets left behind on Mars but actually much more than that (we know, #yawn). At one point, Ridley Scott’s movie turns into one man’s challenge to grow food on a barren, cold and far-off planet. Matt Damon’s ingenious botanist character uses some audacious methods to grow potatoes on the Red Planet and even non-farmers will have (spoiler alert) felt for the guy when his spuds got destroyed. Good film. Weirdly realistic. Matt Damon gives farming a good go.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD It’s a novel from 1874 – don’t worry, we weren’t alive and kicking then either. It’s probably one that was in your great grandparent’s book collection, we know. But Thomas Hardy’s novel had a stellar remake in 2015 with the cast including Carey Mulligan, Michael Sheen and the guy with surname that nobody can pronounce. The film kicks off with a scene that many farmers would fear – an entire flock, belonging to a
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new starter in farming, coming to their untimely deaths due to livestock worrying. Good movie with a solid female lead.
THE WIZARD OF OZ Dorothy was probably one of the very first famous on-screen farmers. Well, she technically only lived on a farm with her aunt and uncle (a bit like one of the characters later in the list). Still, let’s just gloss over that – she would probably have ended up helping out after her visit. Dorothy is also the only on-screen farmer/ farm hand we can think of that survived being plucked up by a cyclone, so respect is due.
SIGNS A good movie with a bit of a rubbish plot twist (sorry not sorry). Aliens land on earth and hide in the crops outside a house. But the weird thing? They can be defeated by water. Yes, water. If you’re not into the whole sci-fi thing you can get your farming kick out of the shots of corn fields that are in every other frame. Basically it’s an M. Night Shyamalan film. That says it all.
INTERSTELLAR Who run the world? Girls. And arable farmers apparently. Kind of. In this Chris Nolan futuristic film, the only thing our humble planet is able to grow is corn, and okra. Yes, okra. Blight really has caused a massive problem. Matthew McConaughey plays the former NASA pilot turned arable farmer, who leads plans to get the human population into space. And then we
haven’t a clue what really happens. Something to do with wormholes, singularity and a library, apparently.
BABE Does this pig need much introduction? Seriously? If you don’t like this movie about a farmer and his pig who wants to be a sheepdog, you have no heart. It was nominated for seven Oscars. This also includes Babe 2, Babe 3, Babe 4 (we’ve lost track, but there are probably more).
STAR WARS Ok – let’s be honest here, there was never really any doubt about this. Before he became a Jedi, Luke Skywalker was a farmboy with his aunt and uncle Beru and Lars, more concerned with day-to-day gripes like finding power converters at Tosche Station. Anyway, it’s not long before his father’s legacy catches up with him and Luke’s exciting and dark journey begins – a world away from his farming roots. As Han Solo tells him: “Travelling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, farm boy."
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