Terrence Malick’s wheat-field romance is beautiful, uneasy and worth your patience. Its lovers can seem remote, but Linda Manz’s dry narration keeps the light and music from making their troubles seem too grand.
Days of Heaven is a romance in which we spend an unusual amount of time looking at wheat. That could become precious quickly, but Terrence Malick makes the fields matter: the lovers’ happiness belongs to a place where work and money still govern what happens. We recommend it for the force of its images and for the child’s voice that keeps interrupting their splendour. There is a reservation, and it matters: at times the adults seem remote enough to weaken the romance.
The story gives Bill and Abby a deception to maintain and a farmer to deceive, which is enough machinery for a tense romantic drama. Richard Gere gives Bill an impatience that helps explain why desire becomes a practical problem so quickly. Brooke Adams makes Abby’s feelings seem less easily settled, while Sam Shepard’s farmer brings a useful stillness to the triangle. The restrained performances ask us to read small gestures, and for much of the film that works; we are watching people who cannot afford to say everything.
Néstor Almendros’s cinematography gives the wheat its gold without making the fields look safe. The natural light near the end of the day has a short-lived warmth, so even a calm image can make us aware that there is little time to enjoy it. We can understand the lovers wanting to stay inside these pictures. The light gives their deception a troubling ease, making it apparent why nobody would want to disturb the arrangement while it seems to be working.
Linda Manz is the reason the film seldom becomes too pleased with how it looks. As Linda, the child narrator, she speaks with a bluntness that gives no special status to the adults’ romantic troubles. We were moved by her flat, resigned delivery, because she sounds accustomed to disappointments a child should not have to take for granted. Her voice can also be funny without setting up a joke, and it makes the quiet between the adults feel less solemn.
Billy Weber’s editing moves through the story elliptically, leaving us to connect feelings that a more conventional romance would explain in conversation. The approach suits the furtive gestures, though some transitions leave the characters’ motives thinner than they need to be. Ennio Morricone’s music sustains the feeling across those gaps, giving the restrained exchanges an ache the performances do not always convey. It is effective scoring, although we occasionally want the lovers to make as strong an impression as the music surrounding them.
As a romantic melodrama, the film takes a risk by saying so little about what its lovers feel. That usually pays off when a glance or Linda’s voice tells us enough, but there are stretches when reserve starts to resemble vagueness. Abby, in particular, can feel too distant for the strain placed on her relationships to register fully. We do not need a speech spelling everything out; a little more time with her would have helped.
At 94 minutes, it is short enough to invite another viewing without much imposition. We would go back for Linda, whose voice is easy to undervalue while the wheat occupies our eyes. A large screen helps, but the narration deserves just as much attention as the fields. Choose it for an evening when nobody needs the lovers to explain themselves.
