Day 92: I Know Where I’m Going (1945)

The creative team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger return for a third film in “The Criterion Summer” and this time with something unlike their previously reviewed dramas, “The Red Shoes” and “Black Narcissus.” A lighthearted love story, “I Know Where I’m Going!” is a tale of both modern time attitudes and ancient myth, of a fast paced life in a slow moving country.

In the film, “Pygmalion’s” Wendy Hiller plays Joan Webster, a stubborn go-getter whose unshakable determination has gotten her everything things she’s always wanted through the sheer strength of her own iron-like will and, when she finally lays her sights on marrying Sir Robert Bellinger, a very wealthy and much older Scotsman, who lives on the Isle of Kiloran, there won’t be anything to stop her from hearing those wedding bells chime.

But, just as this unstoppable woman barrels towards her ultimate goal, fate steps in and brings her to a screeching halt. When bad weather holds off her boat ride to Kiloran, Joan is forced to wait it out on the Isle of Mull, among its laid back community and Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey), a naval man who is also trying to make it to Kiloran for his shore leave.

With nothing better to do, Joan and Torquil strike up a friendship and soon Joan finds out that her new traveling companion is actually the the Laird of Kiloran and owns the island while Sir Robert simply leases it from him. As the storms continues and Joan misses the day of her wedding, she’s finally slowed down enough to find herself conflicted between the life she thought she desired with Sir Robert and the unknown possibility of being with Torquil. If a decision is to be made, it will need to be made quickly before the storm lets up and the boat comes for Joan and her future.

“I Know Where I’m Going” is certainly the most lighthearted of the Powell and Pressburger films we’ve watched over “The Criterion Summer” and the earliest of their work, but much of what’s found in this film can be seen as an influence on their later work, including both “The Red Shoes” and “Black Narcissus.” With this film, the concept of culture clash, which later is the whole crux of “Black Narcissus,” shows up here as Joan finds herself amongst the Scottish people on the Isle of Mull. Though they all speak English, it is if they don’t speak the same language at all. There are customs, traditions, and town dynamics that Joan is completely unaware of, especially with the position that Torquil holds in the community as Laird. Also, Joan’s entire “go-get’em” demeanor isn’t something that this laid back part of the world understands. Though its hardly the same sort of extreme cultural tension found in “Black Narcissus” “I Know Where I’m Going” uses what it does have for humor more than anything else.

Also, much like “The Red Shoes,” which Powell and Pressburger would make three years later, “I Know Where I’m Going” has an aspect of myth and magic to it, stemming from Scottish heritage. In one scene, Joan wants to see the inside of Moy Castle, but Torquil won’t accompany her, stating that, centuries ago, an ancestor of his had stormed the castle, capturing his wife with a lover. In a state of fury, he threw them into a water filled dungeon and his wife placed a curse on all the Lairds of Kiloran, stating that any who dared to step into the Castle would be chained to a woman to the end of his days. Of course, this grave story, much like the cultural tension, is later used in the film to further the its lighthearted tone instead of bringing it down to a drama.

“I Know Where I’m Going” is a fun and beautiful film that captures the glow of the Scottish landscape even if filmed in black and white and its tale of a young determined woman meeting a more laid back man is an early account of a staple in today’s romantic comedy genre.

To learn more about “I Know Where I’m Going,” check out Criterion’s page here.

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