Laserdiscs
Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey) crosses the threshold of the accursed Castle o f Moy.
and Pressburger), and it is fol­ lowed by several supplementary chapters that offer compelling testimony to the film’s extraordi­ nary personal charge—its ability, if you will, to change lives. It tells the story of Joan
Webster (Wendy Hiller), a young social climber betrothed to a wealthy industrialist, who finds her certain path in life compli­ cated by Fate while en route to her wedding on the Scottish isle of Kiloran—of which her fiancé is lord. After her arrival at Mull, she meets Naval officer Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey) and the weather immediately worsens, making her excursion to Kiloran impossible. The two are thrown together by this and other adver­ sities, until Torquil finally intro­ duces himself as the true laird of Kiloran, who is renting the isle to support himself while fulfilling his wartime duties. Deeply affected by the mossy beauty of the Scot­ tish landscape, and the patient and harmonious lifestyles of its common people, and frightened by her growing sexual attraction
to Torquil, an impatient and des­ perate Joan offers £20 to a needy young boatman to steal her across the tempestuous bay into upper class security—and thus buys herself into a harrowing, life-and-death struggle with Corryvreckan, a gigantic whirl­ pool awakening into reality from an ancient local legend (a terrify­ ing scene inspired by Poe’s “A Descent into the Maelstrom”). While not a fantasy film in the
strictest sense, I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING! might be termed an early example of “magical real­ ism,” in which the viewer turns in a revolving door of the physi­ cal and spiritual, the waking and the dreaming. It begins with a playful, exhilarating hopscotch through the phases of Joan’s childhood (with the main titles incongruously appearing in sev­ eral natural places, the title itself narrated in increasingly chiding ways). When Joan reaches the train station, we segue from the boarding platform to the actual voyage as the camera tracks into a gentleman’s top hat, which
begins to puff smoke like a coal engine. Going to Mull, our hero­ ine dreams... and not only is the dream interesting (it ends with an extraordinary shot of a miniature train snaking through a toyland of scotch-plaid hillsides), but the way into the dream is captivat­ ing; it begins with an off-kilter shot of Joan looking past her bagged wedding dress into a mir­ ror, continues with a pan from the sleeping Joan to her swaying, transparent garment bag (now inexplicably empty), and then immerses us in her fatuous dream of marriage. The atmosphere of Mull is dense with tempests and fog, and the unchanged land­ scapes of ancient castles and fields allow the past and present to occupy the same plane. The B&W photography of Erwin Hillier (whose stellar career ranged from Fritz Lang’s M to THE VALLEY OF GWANGI) is impeccable, using expressionistic interior lighting to reflect Joan’s emotional conflicts, which are of her own making, and natural sunlight to convey the authentic enchantment of the locations. Hiller and Livesey were born
to play these roles, and the many supporting actors (including Petula Clark as a bookish, all- seeing child evidently inspired by Edna May Wonacott’s character in Hitchcock’s SHADOW OF A DOUBT) make a deep impres­ sion. But special mention is deserved by Pamela Brown, stun­ ning in the supporting role of Catriona Potts, a Diana-like hunt­ ress whose rustic home pro­ vides Joan with lodgings during her stranding in Mull. As Mr. Christie’s commentary attests, Powell and Brown had an affair during the making of this film, and while not a conventionally attractive woman, she be­ comes—seen through Powell’s
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