September is here and I've already seen friends and family break out the pumpkin heads and spooky lights. While I look forward to taking walks under the changing leaves and wearing fuzzy coats and buying sheer tights to wear with corduroy skirts, I am particularly looking forward to watching my favorite fall movie, Fly Away Home, starring Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin. I know the majority of you are antsy to watch Hocus Pocus or The Nightmare Before Christmas, but those looking for something autumn but not explicitly or commercially autumn should look into Fly Away Home. I watched this move as a small child, and for me, it brings back a wave of nostalgia and I've always felt like this movie was so severely underrated. As of this publishing, you can watch this film on Hulu or Amazon Prime Video. And I'm just gonna say it, Jeff Daniels is sexy as hell in this film. With his long dirty blonde hair all messy like that? I mean, come on! Although this film doesn't have themes of witchcraft or All Hallows Eve spells, it is a more realistic film about the environment, father-daughter relationships, and how to survive after a massive loss.
Directed by Carroll Ballard, this 1996 movie is based on the real life work of William Lishman and Joseph Duff's experiments on migrating birds. We follow the story of a 13 year old girl named Amy who must leave her home in New Zealand to live with her father in Canada after her mother tragically dies in a car crash. Once on her father's remote farm, she spends her days roaming the fields alone, longing for her mother. Her father, a kooky artist and inventor, consistently fails to earn her trust, and Amy stays weary of him and of her father's friends who are all around welcoming and kind. When a construction crew trespasses onto her father's land and knocks down some trees, Amy finds goose eggs that will change her life forever. I am no cinematographer, but the camera work and the lighting of this film are incredible. They must have consistently shot during golden hour because the light that shines on the actors in the external scenes is truly gold and soft enough to actually see. In some shots, you can see strong beams of light coming through the trees, and it creates an all around intense (but calming?) viewing experience. Upon further research on this film, I learned that this movie was nominated for one and only one Oscar for Best Cinematography (Caleb Deschanel) in 1997, but lost out to The English Patient which also won Best Picture that year. (I haven't seen The English Patient because I've heard disturbing things about it but maybe I should give it a watch one of these days... I'm a grown up, I should be able to handle these types of things!!!)
I watched Fly Away Home on a 7 hour flight a few weeks ago, and even on those tiny airplane screens it holds up. On the flight, this movie was under the children's section of movies to watch, and as a child I indeed watched this film over and over again. But as an adult, this movie feels different to me, like it is more important somehow. I don't think I fully grasped the theme of grieving, and had no idea about anything Jeff Daniels was doing in the background. There is one point in the film where Jeff Daniels sells a very important piece of technology to foreign buyers, and that helped to fund the journey that he and his daughter would later go on in act 3. I was always so focused on the geese and Amy's experience of being a pre-teen in the 90s and discovering the chicness of wearing a nose ring that I wasn't really paying attention to the wider storyline. Amy has no one to really guide her on how to cope with the loss of her mother, and when the geese (spoiler?) imprint on her, she becomes their mother and takes care of them like she would've liked to have been taken care of by hers. She eventually has to let them go and must trust that they will find their way back to her one day. Also, the Mary Chapin Carpenter song that is played at the most emotional moments of the film doesn't help either, so watch with tissues. My dream of dreams is to find a small movie theatre that plays old films and watch this on the big screen in 35mm. I haven't been to a movie theatre in ages and ages. Until then, I will be cuddling up with blankets, a hot cup of tea, and a lit candle to watch this film one of these weekends once it gets more chilly. It's still 85 degrees and 97% humidity here in New York City, so I will have to wait! Until next time ♥
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