Released after the death of one of its main stars Ray McAnally. Venus Peter is based on Christopher Rush's semi autobiographical novel.
This small scale whimsical film is beautiful to look at, evocative in spirit but it has been largely forgotten. 30 years on, no one had written a review for it on IMDB.
Set in the harsh insular Orkney Island fishing community in the late 1940s. Young Peter lives with his mother and her family. His father is absent and no one willing to talk about his whereabouts. His grandfather (Ray McAnally) is a fisherman concerned about new nets that catches anything and everything. His elderly aunt likes poetry but life at school is miserable until his teacher dies and a better more appreciative teacher then appears.
The film has no narrative. It is a film lost in mysticism, maybe magical realism. Peter is a dreamer and a fantasist. There is a focus on the importance of the church and the sea. There is a whale that becomes beached. Peter gets chased by a blind man. Eventually his father shows up, Peter thought he might have died but he has money.
There is a good resemblance with the young actor who plays Peter and Peter Caffrey who played his father. However this is a frustrating film because it makes little sense. It relies on imagery but when it ends you just wonder what it was all about. Maybe director Ian Sellar was influenced by Terrence Malick.
This small scale whimsical film is beautiful to look at, evocative in spirit but it has been largely forgotten. 30 years on, no one had written a review for it on IMDB.
Set in the harsh insular Orkney Island fishing community in the late 1940s. Young Peter lives with his mother and her family. His father is absent and no one willing to talk about his whereabouts. His grandfather (Ray McAnally) is a fisherman concerned about new nets that catches anything and everything. His elderly aunt likes poetry but life at school is miserable until his teacher dies and a better more appreciative teacher then appears.
The film has no narrative. It is a film lost in mysticism, maybe magical realism. Peter is a dreamer and a fantasist. There is a focus on the importance of the church and the sea. There is a whale that becomes beached. Peter gets chased by a blind man. Eventually his father shows up, Peter thought he might have died but he has money.
There is a good resemblance with the young actor who plays Peter and Peter Caffrey who played his father. However this is a frustrating film because it makes little sense. It relies on imagery but when it ends you just wonder what it was all about. Maybe director Ian Sellar was influenced by Terrence Malick.