By Our Selves

In many ways, British direc­tor Andrew Köt­ting can do no wrong. He locates an idea, offers it a hearty bear-hug, and then through some mys­te­ri­ous alchem­i­cal process, trans­forms it into a whim­si­cal hunk of daffy brico­lage, some­times pro­found, often tragi­com­ic, always very Eng­lish. With By Our Selves, he recre­ates an episode in the life of the pas­to­ri­al­ly-inclined Eng­lish poet John Clare, who, hav­ing suc­cumbed to insan­i­ty in lat­er life, decides to walk 90 miles from an Essex asy­lum to find his estranged love, Mary Joyce.

The cin­e­mat­ic real­i­ty of this tall tale is that a slight­ly dishev­elled and large­ly silent fig­ure (played by Toby Jones) wan­ders across the land­scape with a for­lorn expres­sion, the film less inter­est­ed in explor­ing his men­tal state and more focused on employ­ing him as a locus for sen­sa­tion – the sights, sounds and smells of the road. Köt­ting achieves this effect by decon­struct­ing the film as he makes it – a strat­e­gy he’s used in past works such as Swandown and Gal­li­vant. He makes the view­er aware of the cam­era, he con­stant­ly alters the film stock, switch­es between colour and mono­chrome, he films the sound man as his boom mic hov­ers care­ful­ly above Jones’ bowler-hat­ted head, his breathy grunts record­ed for prosperity.

It’s a film about out­er rather than inner life. Along for the ride is Kötting’s lat­ter-day broth­er-in-arms, Iain Sin­clair, who talks from behind a plas­tic mask and John Lennon-style cir­cu­lar shades, pos­tu­lat­ing with melo­di­ous eru­di­tion, often arriv­ing at a term whose mean­ing is elu­sive even though it sounds very clever. Alan Moore sits on a park bench next to John Bar­l­ey­corn, offer­ing his inter­pre­ta­tion on Clare’s way­ward pere­gri­na­tions. And Clare schol­ar Dr Simon Kovesi gets to say his piece, though it’s less excit­ing and drug­gy than the rest.

You’re nev­er quite sure what’s hold­ing the film togeth­er – it’s like a leaky schooner surg­ing out to the sea – but it some­how hangs in there with help from some salty asides and Jones’ own father who ​“nar­rates” the film. In the film’s beau­ti­ful and unex­pect­ed finale, a com­par­i­son is made between’s Clare’s scat­ter­brained search for love and Wendy’s jour­ney along the yel­low brick road in the Wiz­ard of Oz, fea­tur­ing anoth­er key play­er in Kötting’s revolv­ing com­pa­ny – his daugh­ter, Eden.