Powell & Pressburger: I Know Where I’m Going!
October 2, 2024
Enchanted Evenings: The Boundless Cinema of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
A brash status-obsessed woman (Wendy Hiller) heads north to marry into corporate wealth. But stormy weather strands her on a tiny Hebridean isle, where the landscape, and the alluringly simple life of the locals, seem magical. Are she and the local laird (Roger Livesey) part of an ancient legend? Where is she going?
On the Blog - Film Notes: I Know Where I’m Going!
Individual Tickets: Select showtime to purchase.
Passes: $125 | $85 SIFF Members - includes full series access
SIFF year-round passes and vouchers are not valid for this screening.
Uninterested in traditional wealth and status, Powell said they made A Canterbury Tale as a crusade against materialism. After that film came out, Pressburger said, “Let’s have another go at it so we can see what’s going to happen when the war is over. I wrote the new script in four days, it burst out—I couldn’t hold it back—I felt so strongly about the idea.” Headstrong Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) knows where she’s going—to marry a rich industrialist in the Western Isles of the far northern Scottish Hebrides. But as in a Celtic myth, she’s waylaid by wind-and-waves and has to stay on the Isle of Mull, where her sense of self, all her certainties, are disrupted and challenged by the local people and their timeless ways. They “aren’t poor, we just don’t have any money.” An entrancing beauty (Pamela Brown) shoots a rabbit for dinner and lets her huge wolfhounds sit on the furniture. It feels as though this woman has known and loved the community laird Torquil (Roger Livesey) through many lifetimes. Torquil disturbs Joan the most. He's dangerously handsome, in tune with nature, glowing with the joy of life. When Emeric Pressburger died in 1988, Powell chose to show this fiercely enchanting film as a memorial. Actress Tilda Swinton says, “I Know Where I’m Going! is the film I declare most readily when asked the always tricky question of what my favorite film might be.”
—Greg Olson
- Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
- Principal Cast: Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey
- Country: United Kingdom
- Year: 1945
- Running Time: 92 min.
- Producer: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
- Screenplay: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
- Cinematographers: Erwin Hillier
- Editors: John Seabourne Sr.
- Music: Allan Gray
- Filmography: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) The Red Shoes (1948)
- Language: English