THE MOON AND THE SLEDGEHAMMER

Director Philip Trevelyan / 1971 / UK

The subject for this film by Philip Trevelyan is a family of five: Mr. Page and his two sons and two daughters, who inhabit a rundown old house located in a wood somewhere not far from London. What 29-year-old Trevelyan is interested in is the uniqueness of the way in which they confront the future, whilst remaining dependent upon the past. The male members of the family seem to have a fetish for archaic machinery. and whatever money they earn, comes from servicing various machines. The girls are more concerned with tending their garden and playing the numerous musical instruments which decorate their house.

As they go about their daily chores, chatting with the camera as they do. we are made aware of the richness of their lives, the intuitive understandings they have of each other, despite overt differences, and the way they have come to terms with their world. Yet. their life is far from the romantic idyll it might first appear to be.

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