Overview: An ancient monolith stands sentinel in a Cornish field for millennia. Part provocation, part meditation, part invocation, BAFTA-winning documentarian Christopher Morris’ A YEAR IN A FIELD is a record of their brief interaction.

Weathering the elements in the center of a field in West Cornwall is the Longstone, a natural relic that has quietly witnessed 4,000 years of tumultuous history.

Morris’ elegiac, meditative, yet profoundly important film is the record of a year in the life of the monolith, beginning on Winter Solstice 2020, as the order of the natural world began unravelling around the globe and the threat of extreme climate change became a reality.

Beautifully shot, with a richly layered sound design, the film meditates on the passage of time through its appreciation of nature, highlighting the subtle changes of the seasons, but also the need to act in order to battle man-made changes that will forever alter our planet. (Sheffield Doc Fest)

Blu-ray Verdict: The title says it all: beginning at the winter solstice in 2020, academic and film-maker Christopher Morris filmed a barley field in west Cornwall for one year. A field. That’s it. For 86 minutes this thoughtful, meditative documentary reveals the comings and goings: sunsets, sunrises, the midnight frolics of bunnies, the odd crisp packet blowing in.

It’s unlikely to be storming a multiplex near you – though the opening scene does feature the close-up of a corpse. The unfortunate creature in question however is a field mouse that appears – limbs present and correct – to have expired from natural causes. The film’s paciest action scene is a three-minute-plus sequence of slugs slithering across lichen on a standing stone.

This eight-foot stone is more than 4,000 years old. “Carved by an alien civilization – not from outer space, but outer time,” Morris says. “So long ago that who they were and what this means is lost to us with any certainty.” His voiceover has an elegant turn of phrase, finding poetry in the science of the moon slowly drifting away from Earth, or the complexity of the pale green lichen that makes its home on the ancient monolith.

Elsewhere, I felt ever so slightly hectored by the commentary on climate change. A discarded bit of Ann Summers packaging littering the field is the starting point for a sequence on the polluting fashion industry. As undoubtedly well-informed, considered and rightfully furious these points are, it’s a tone you may bristle at, with comments like this: “Our annual rhythms are no longer equinox, solstice and season. But want, take and more.” Though it’s hard to argue with his anger at people buying nylon panties while the planet burns!

Bonus Features:
Introduction by Christopher Morris recorded for the Gimme Some Truth Film Festival
More Than Slow Cinema: Director Christopher Morris and Producer Denzil Monk in Conversation
Paranormal in the West Country: An Interview with The Stone Club’s Lally MacBeth and Matthew Shaw
Q&A at the Philosophical Research Society moderated by Will Sheff of Okkervil River
Interview with Christopher Morris at the Zurich Film Festival
KESTAV (2023) – Short film by Christopher Morris
HOLLOWAY (2015) – Short film by Adam Scovell
Trailer

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Official Trailer