Akenfield (1974)

Directed by

Peter Hall

Genre

drama film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 38m

Rated

12A

Rating

7.6 of 10 from 7 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

In a Suffolk village, the film weaves together the lives of farmworkers and their families across generations. They talk about their work, their faith, and the slow changes that reshape their world.

earthyleisurelyreflectivenonprofessionalauthenticruralobservational

What happens

Akenfield is a 1974 British film directed by Peter Hall in 1974, based loosely upon the book Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe (1969). Blythe has a cameo role as the vicar and all other parts are played by real-life villagers who improvised their own dialogue; there are no professional actors in the piece. Blythe's book is the distillation of interviews with 49 local people, maintaining privacy with false names and sometimes amalgamating two people in one. Blythe once referred to his book as a work of poetry. The film is a work of fiction, based on an 18-page story synopsis by Blythe. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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