SYNOPSIS

Inspired by the idea of a perfectly quiet and blissful moment in the rural night known as the “Blue Hour” as Eric Rohmer envisioned in his Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987), a young man with a fugue-like, infantile mind commits to an introspective journey across the heartland of Dartmoor to unravel this mysterious phenomenon. Trilling an old familiar lullaby on his wondrous, playful trail along ancient stone rows to East Dart River and through the gnarly oaks of Wistman’s Wood, Johnny encounters childhood memories as flashbacks of a lucky and eroding past with his mother. Something - or someone - accompanies him on the way and when he senses this presence he tries to escape it, purge himself, and then hurry up to not miss the Blue Hour as he is running out of time.

Rushing up towards an imposing tor, he anxiously stumbles, and plunges, to suddenly find himself within the timespace where “…even the birds are quiet and the grasshoppers hold their breath”, as his mother described to him so many years ago. Now, he deliriously falls asleep, exhausted by the long inscape journey. 

Discovered by a hiking couple the next morning - Johnny’s man-child state is resolved as he awakes with a clear head.

Only upon his arrival back home in the city do we learn that he suffers from anticipated grief for his senile mother who, diagnosed with Parkinson’s-related PSP (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy), rapidly lost her speech and her ability to walk. The young, sensitive man has taken on a carer role for his parent, involuntarily observing the slow disintegration of her former self.

As he holds his mother’s frail, tremor-led hand to inform her that he eventually found their Blue Hour, stating that he is aware she was there with him all along, Johnny’s mother remains unmoved. With a resilient eye, he gently begins to sing a few lines of the familiar song. His mother’s hard, straight gaze turns towards him, and her lips part as if to form words.