An affecting portrait of a landscape in decay, “Beneath the Harvest Sky” is a promising debut from writer/director team Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly. The pair are former documentarians and that past shows in the observational rigor brought to the Northern Maine setting of their new film. The camera shows the setting by only sparingly interspersing wide shots, preferring to linger on small details in close-up – peeling paint, smashed walls, rusted pipes. Van Buren, ME is populated by houses and people whose best days are behind them. For the two teenage protagonists, an abandoned house serves as a temporary refuge, where they can smash detritus of the past while planning their future elsewhere, until a symbolic tragedy destroys both this refuge and the future they planned in it.
The story centers on best friends Casper (Emory Cohen) and Dominic (Callan McAuliffe), two high school seniors. Their friendship seems the most natural thing to each other, but others puzzle at why smart, respectful Dom would hang out with wild, trouble-seeking Casper. Both want only to escape from Van Buren, but while Casper rages against the confines of his life, Dom keeps his head down and works towards his goal methodically. This is the sort of rural town where the school lets the kids out to help with the harvest and most of the film takes place during harvest break.
While Casper and Dom and their shared goals are the thematic center of the film, much of the story finds them going separate ways as they earn money in the town’s two surviving industries – potato farming and dealing prescription drugs. The film gives an almost documentary level of detail to these two industries - Dom toils in the potato fields, making an unglamorous living as previous generations have in this town, while Casper pursues the growth industry of running prescription drugs with his criminal father, a much more lucrative trade, but one tainted with seediness and despair. Both boys pursue (or are pursued by) love interests, but are ultimately more bonded to each other.
In some ways they call to mind Charlie and Johnny Boy from Scorsese’s “Mean Streets;” two friends linked in general purpose, but drawn into conflict by differing methods. Yet Dom is never anywhere near as compelling as Charlie, whose outer calm belied a tumultuous inner life. Dom is never given the time to develop into a distinct character, feeling instead like a foil for Casper. Luckily, Emory Cohen delivers an electric performance as Casper, a physical animal who wears his rage and alienation in every movement.
The story of “Beneath the Harvest Sky” may be familiar, but only because the circumstances are timeless. The true value of the film is the tender, yet critical eye it casts on Northern Maine, a seldom-filmed niche of the American landscape. Gaudet and Pullapilly prove themselves to be directors to watch.
