MovieChat Forums > The Return of the Native (1994) Discussion > Exmoor doesn't look like Wessex

Exmoor doesn't look like Wessex

posted 16 years ago by Marlburian
2 replies | jump to latest

I know Hardy's Wessex (the countryside, that is) quite well. I thought the scenery looked a bit too rugged for Wessex, and see that the film was made on Exmoor (which I've been over a few times). I thought I recognised the actual "Doone Waterfall" in the opening scenes, and don't think there's anything like that in Wessex. (Ironically the Doone Waterfall has been depicted in a much-exaggerated way in screen adaptations of "Lorna Doone".) But then most Wessex scenery is "pleasant", and the more spectacular parts are perhaps too close to the "madding crowd" (ie the public) for filming.

Still,it wasn't as bad as the Isle of Man standing in for Dartmooor and Torquay, as it did in a couple of films (including "The Hound of the Baskervilles") three or four years ago.

By the way, I thought the acting was good.

[–] tonstant viewer 16 years ago

Absolutely correct.

Puddletown Heath, the original for Hardy's Egdon Heath, was an austere kind of place, and this movie is filmed with a thick candy glaze that's more obviously romantic, almost to the point of a Harlequin paperback, and not at all what Hardy had in mind. Also the hills of Wessex are smaller and more intimate; Exmoor is much grander.

But the film is very worth watching anyway. And the climax will grab you as Hardy intended.

[–] JamesHitchcock 10 years ago

Actually, Exmoor is actually within the boundaries of the ancient Kingdom of Wessex, lying on the border of Devon (Hardy's "Lower Wessex") and Somerset ("Outer Wessex"). Presumably you mean that Exmoor doesn't look much like Dorset, or "South Wessex" as Hardy called it.