And Then Come The Nightjars – Bea Roberts

Establishing shot: dusk over bleak countryside; in the distance, occasional headlights suggest a tentative road link to civilization—where are we? Why so remote?

In fact, we are on a farm on the edge of Dartmoor, and the irascible Michael (David Fielder) is emptying a can of disinfectant over a pile of straw, then scrubbing the farm gate. A vet, Jeff (Nigel Hastings), arrives to help with a cow giving birth. This is 2001, in the early days of the Foot and Mouth epidemic that devastated farming and caused UK meat products to be banned from international sale. Millions of animals were slaughtered, and thousands of farmworkers lost their jobs. However, the big picture is not what concerns And Then Came the Nightjars; it is the effect of the epidemic on the lives of just two people.

Michael’s wife has recently died, leaving him with only his beloved herd of cows, while Jeff is sinking into alcoholism as a result of the demise of his marriage. In referring to the policy of slaughtering all livestock within a three-kilometre radius of an infected farm, Michael asks Jeff to protect his animals; Jeff stands silent.

Inevitably, the slaughter policy is enforced, and Michael tries to hold off the extermination team with a shotgun. Jeff intervenes, and the cull goes ahead.
There then follows a devastating scene where Michael has to listen to the reports as the bolts are fired into the cows’ skulls. This is indeed a very dark moment. In terms of the structure of the film, there is an effect too. The power of the scene unbalances the whole narrative since nothing else can match the forcefulness of that moment. Even when Michael finds a fugitive Jeff in his barn, the sound of those shots still colours the action.

What survives is their friendship. Jeff is forgiven, and the two end up as co-owners of Michael’s farm. As Michael’s health declines, perhaps Jeff will inherit the land and the tradition that Michael represents. As the final credits approach, the two men sit companionably on a log overlooking a valley, continuing to wind each other up.

In what is, on balance, a remarkable film, I have a number of reservations. Michael’s Devon accent is so thick that it took at least ten minutes for my ear to tune in, and even then, I do not think I fully mastered it. The transition of Michael and Jeff to business partners seems unlikely, and the appearance of Nightjars (reputedly harbingers of death) just before the cows are slaughtered and Michael’s imminent quietus strays a little too far into the mystical.

Independent film always has a problem when it comes to getting a wider showing; this one deserves to be seen much more widely.