Williams lives a relatively solitary existence in a forested area in the highlands of Scotland known as Bogancloch, and the film follows the seasons of a year in his life, interacting with visitors and neighbors, or simply getting on with the daily chores on his little farm cottage. Shot in black and white, with some astonishing vistas of the Scottish Highlands, the film is punctuated with still color photographs showing a much younger Williams during his life abroad and on his travels. The tone of the film is quietly reflective and at times disarmingly emotional.
We first meet Williams in his battered old car, using a toothbrush to fix the heater, jamming it into to the fan outlet so that warm air can circulate around the car’s cabin. Later he’ll find a pheasant, dead by the side of the road, and take it home to prepare and cook it. Sometimes Williams has visitors, and they sit around a campfire at dusk to play music; other times Williams will visit the local school to give lectures on astronomy, using an umbrella as a prop to represent a carousel of the planets of our solar system. The children seem to genuinely respond to this eccentric figure.
Director Rivers is in no hurry to tell us Jake’s story. He allows images and sounds (almost exclusively diegetic) to present the audience a portrait of a man who has lived in many worlds, with all kinds of people, and has now settled into a routine which suits his twilight years. The color photographs are crucial here – a cutaway to a still image of a young Williams hanging out in Dubai during what one might call his ‘hippy days’ reveals so much about the man without having to say a single word.
Williams plays a lot of records on his stereo system. Old rock ‘n roll, Indian music and some reggae, and it’s a pleasure to see him smile as he nods along to the beat, and so we form an image ourselves of his life then and now. If I were to have one complaint about this film, it would be that including often very long, static shots of a snowy cabin with absolutely no action, narration or musical accompaniment, is asking rather a lot from your audience. There’s meditative, and then there’s soporific.
Towards the end of the film, we see Williams drag a tin bathtub outside and fill it with water boiled from a kettle. I settled in, knowing at once that this was the film’s big finale. That’s right – a ten minute uninterrupted shot of Williams stripping naked and taking a bath outside in his snow-covered garden. What happens next though, is kind of magical. The camera takes flight, and soars higher and higher until we are a mile above Jake in his tin bath, the essence of the film becoming ever clearer as the drone supplies us with an astonishing eye-of-god shot, letting us know just how remote Williams is from civilization.
Rivers has made a film about the passing of time. A film about memories, regrets and routines, and about keeping on going. Looking at those close-ups of Williams’ face and eyes as he listens to a jazz record, we see every line and nick and blemish, the face of a man who’s seen so much. And while we instinctively know this is a man who greatly values the time he spends in isolation, we might also consider how brave he is to continue his work, his painting, teaching, woodworking – his cooking. Even dragging out that damn tin tub to wash scrub his frail frame.
Bogancloch is most certainly not a film for everyone, but for those lucky enough to really appreciate its themes and subdued rhythms, it teaches us something, not just about Jake Williams and his long and unique life, but about life itself. It reminded me of a quote from the film Another Woman, “Is a memory something we have, or something we’ve lost?” I suspect Jake has an answer.
