The long voyage home (1940)

More John Ford films on the blog! The long voyage home is almost as loose-limbed as The Wagon master. The film is based on a play by Eugene O'Neill. From the perspectives of the numerous characters, the films explores complicated relationships to what it means to have a home. The setting of the film is an English cargo ship during world war II going from the west indies to baltimore and then England. Tension is created by the multitude of types aboard the ship: the philosophical type, the playful guy, the spiteful cynic etc. I expected the film to be some kind of adventure movie, but it wasn't that at all. What we have is rather an elegiac psychological drama about the turns of life at sea. In the second part of the film, there is an extremely lengthy segment in which all "action" is completely suspended. The crew has finally arrived in England, and most of them decide not to sign on to another boat. They are all intent on helping their friend Ole get to his boat that will take him to Sweden. But they settle for the seedy bars instead.... -- One of the things I like about The long voyage home is that it is so open-ended. The viewer must decide for herself what she sees as central in the events of the film. There is no grand "point", no big conclusion, no calming or feel-good resolution. We are presented to these characters and almost every one of them seem pretty lost. This is what Ford does: he describes a time and place where people have no given place in the world, where certainties are few. It is interesting that this film was done in 1940 - and it gives a very vivid image of the ongoing war. In The Long Voyage home there are no heroes, no heroism. There are just human beings who try to make up their minds about the shape of their lives. It's a grim movie - honest.