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Adapted from the novel by Bruce Chatwin, ‘On the Black Hill’ (1987) tells the story of Lewis and Benjamin Jones (played by Mike and Robert Gwyilm), twin brothers who grew up on a remote farm on the Welsh Borders. The film spans the 80 years of their lives and the circumstances of their parents meeting and falling in love. Rather than start from the beginning, the film opens from a point close to the end, the twins are old men, aged 80 years approximately and the montage of establishing shots show the house where they have grown up together plus their morning routine. We see photographs on the walls and mantelpiece of the twins during different stages of their youth which seem to go backwards through time from middle age to adolescence and then showing the twins as toddlers, there are also photographs of their parents, paintings that we will recognise from their mothers’ home and other objects that are acquired during the story such as a painting of a native American which is sent from an uncle in Canada. They sleep in the same bed that we later find is their parent’s bed and the bed that they and their sister were born in.
As the twin’s peer from the window, they spot a hang glider and there is a cutaway and we see what the twins are seeing, as we follow the glider, there are several wide shots of the Welsh countryside, we then begin to see what it is seeing and the focus settles onto a church in the middle of the countryside. This scene is a useful transition between the present and the past as the story begins to follow how Lewis and Benjamin's parents met. Their mother, Mary Latimer (Gemma Jones) is a well-to-do member of the upper middle class, in the book her father is a priest, and it is at church where her attraction to Amos Jones (Bob Peck) is sparked. Amos is the complete social opposite to Mary, he is poor and comes from a farming family, he appears to work on the Latimer's land and in church he does not respond to Mary's glances. However, once Amos hears about her father's death, knowing that there is nobody to reject his advances, he takes the opportunity to strike up a companionship with the young, intelligent woman who, it seems has been left alone in the world.
Amos treats Mary with a great deal of respect, and we do not see them romantically involved until after they have moved into the farm at the Vision together, however it is clear that the pair are very much in love. When they have moved into the farmhouse everything seems perfect, however things turn dark as winter sets in. Amos comes home in a foul mood, barely speaking to Mary and throws the meal she has cooked onto the floor, declaring it "filthy Indian food". He raises his fist to strike her but does not hit her, instead running away into the night. The words of Mary's friend Mrs Bickerton ring in our minds "I do like the Welsh, but they get so angry, later on." It is also noted in the book that Amos had a wife from an arranged marriage before Mary; he used to beat his previous wife, a woman completely different to Mary. She was quiet, passive and not proud of her appearance; she grew depressed after the death of their child, a boy and then starved herself to death. This may explain why Amos cannot bring himself to hit Mary; however, it is implied that he has hit her before although we never see it. On the night of the twins’ birth, he mutters to himself "Let it be a boy, I'll never touch her again.” Logically, with the birth of twin boys, the reasoning would be that the violence would certainly be at an end. But this is not the case due to Amo's rage spiralling out of control due to his feud with Watkins (Eric Wyn), he continues to hit Mary.
In the book, Mary attempts to leave Amos to go and live with her sister; however, she tells Mary that she shall have to stick by him as a consequence of marrying beneath her social standing. No attempt is made in the film, but Mary does eventually stand up to Amos and make him realise what he is doing when he hits her and blames her for the murder of their sheepdog by shouting at him and throwing their wedding photograph onto the floor, smashing the frame. Amos's anger is not only targeted at Mary, Rebecca (Lynn Gardner) their daughter also comes under fire. When he finds that she is pregnant and by an Irishman at that, he banishes her from the farm for good. His anger seems hypocritical when we take into consideration that Amos married Mary, an English woman and had three children with her.
Lewis and Benjamin are never touched by their father during the film; however, they are both affected by the violence in that they try to avoid conflict. When war is announced, the twins refuse to participate as they will be separated. They attempt to stay together but ultimately; Benjamin is sent away to war. Upon his return the contrast between the twins’ personalities is more defined. Benjamin is more withdrawn and quieter than previously, but Lewis continues to maintain his usually cheerful disposition and his habit of flirting with the girls of the village. For all his attempts at romance with the female characters who cross his path, Lewis is ultimately unsuccessful. Due to their remote setting, women are few and far between for the pair. It is implied that Benjamin has homosexual tendencies due to his close relationship to his mother and his disapproval of Lewis's reputation as a 'ladies’ man'. This is never fully disclosed, and the film portrays their relationship as nothing more than a unique and loving relationship between two brothers who have decided to share everything, including their lives together.
The reasons why neither of them gets married or enter into relationships is still unclear, Lewis may have been knocked back too many times, and when he builds up his hopes to see Rosie (Nicola Beddoe), she rejects him by sleeping with another man. Lewis is later rejected by Lotte (Catherine Schell), a German P.O.W who has been living at the farm, after this we no longer see Lewis make any more attempts to woo any other women. Perhaps, because they witnessed the violence against their mother at their father's hands, they do not want to risk repeating the same cycle. After the death of their parents, they are left alone together and their relationship becomes deeper than before, they are now everything to each other and have to look after each other. They sleep side by side in the same bed as their parents did and carry on running the farm together. Lewis and Benjamin co-exist happily as a self-contained family although they lack a child who can carry on their legacy.
Lewis frequently expresses his fears that they have no heir and luckily, they are given an heir to the farm in the form of Kevin (Eryl Phillips), their great-nephew. At first Benjamin is sceptical towards the idea that Kevin is even related to them, but once they see him in the flesh, they forget all of their doubts. They dote on the young boy as if he were their own, each seeing in him a part of them when they were children. The two men are like another set of parents to Kevin, Benjamin as a motherly figure, doing household chores and making cakes and Lewis as a father showing Benjamin his scrapbook of air disasters and engaging in horseplay. They leave him everything, all of the land that they acquired over the years and a great deal of memories that they have shared with him. Kevin sums up everything that is good about the twins’ personalities combined and provides hope for the future. By looking into the past, to hopeful beginnings and the love that Mary and Amos first shared, we see that the twins have broken the cycle of violence that was deeply embedded in their lives. The film concentrates on the importance of family, from Amos and Mary’s early marriage and the troubles they experienced, to Lewis and Benjamin and their unique co-dependent relationship. When Lewis dies and Benjamin is left on his own, he does not despair. In the parting scene his face is reflected in the empty space on the gravestone, he knows that he will join his brother soon. The cycle will be complete, and The Vision will be carried on by Kevin and his family.
Country: UK
Budget: £
Length: 112mins
Pub/2008
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