Beneath The Harvest Sky
Beneath The Harvest Sky
Tonight's Maine Monday film, I take a look at Beneath The Harvest Sky (aka Blue Potato), an independent film that is set and filmed in and around the border town of Van Buren Maine. The film was written and directed by husband and wife filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, and is about two teenagers growing up in a small rural potato farming town in far northern Aroostook County Maine. The two young men, Casper and Dominic dreaming of leaving Van Buren to move to Boston Massachusetts, but as their dream is on the verge of becoming a reality, there are complications. Casper's father is involved in the underground prescription drug trade, and as his uncle starts becoming unreliable and shifty, his father brings Casper into the "family business". Casper is also told in the beginning of the film by his fifteen year old girlfriend (he is seventeen), that she is pregnant, so he feels that he needs to step up and take care of her, and is questioning whether he should actually leave Van Buren. Dominic has been saving up money from working the potato harvests to buy a corvette and to leave for Boston, but his life starts getting complicated when he meets a cute girl that is also working the potato harvest with him, and they start to develop something that goes beyond just being "harvest friends". Also, everyone is always telling Dominic that he is so much better than Casper, and that he could have a good future awaiting him, but in Casper they only see a loser that will follow in his father's footsteps. Will they get out and follow their dream of leaving rural Maine for the big city of Boston?
Beneath The Harvest Sky was released in 2013 and distributed by Tribeca Films, and with sponsorship and funding from Terra Potato Chips, who is a company that gets all of their blue potatoes for their chips from the potato farm that was featured in the film that some of the characters worked the harvest for. The film stars Emory Cohen as Casper, Callan McAuliffe as Dominic Roy, Aidan Gillen as Clayton (Casper's father), Timm Sharp as Badger (Casper's uncle), Sarah Sutherland as Emma (the girl that Dominic meets at the harvest, and if the name Sutherland sounds familiar, she is in fact the daughter of Kiefer Sutherland and granddaughter of Donald Sutherland), and Zoe Levin as Tasha (Casper's fifteen year old girlfriend). For a low budget independent film it has a surprisingly good cast of actors, many of which have some decent experiences behind them, and for being in their mid twenties at the time of filming the characters who played the teens really did feel like they were actual teenagers.
To me Beneath The Harvest Sky gives me a look into the small kids I see with their big pickup trucks, wearing baseball caps hanging out around small towns. I grew up on a farm and have lived in small towns as well as big cities, but I was always the "weirdo" and "freak" kid that rode a skateboard and listened to punk music, and I grew up with these kids, but I was always outside of their world, and this film gives a glimpse into the world of the small town teenagers. This film also gives a glimpse into the underground prescription drug trade in working class small towns in the USA. At first I was not liking this film, I felt that the characters, especially Casper had no redeeming qualities and I couldn't find myself caring about any of them, until during the harvest Dominic meets Emma, then I started feeling compassion for him, and seeing him through her eyes, she is probably the character that I could feel I identified the most with of all of them. I struggled with Casper to the very end, I hate that small town tough guy attitude that he has, which is very realistic, and I do think that Emory Cohen played the part very very well, because if felt so authentic. Ultimately I think the biggest thing about this film is that it is authentic, it is a very authentic coming of age drama set in small town America. If someone said that this was a true story coming from a town like Van Buren, or even Calais Maine, I would absolutely believe them, these characters are characters that you see not just here in Maine in small towns from Hollis to Presque Isle, but they are very much the teenages you might meet in Western Massachusettes or New York, rural Pennsylvania, or even Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, or Nebraska. This film is very authentic, and the issues that are played out are realistic, and that is why this film works so well. Overall it was an excellent film, made with a low budget, but it worked really well, and I would highly recommend this film.
Beneath The Harvest Sky was released in 2013 and distributed by Tribeca Films, and with sponsorship and funding from Terra Potato Chips, who is a company that gets all of their blue potatoes for their chips from the potato farm that was featured in the film that some of the characters worked the harvest for. The film stars Emory Cohen as Casper, Callan McAuliffe as Dominic Roy, Aidan Gillen as Clayton (Casper's father), Timm Sharp as Badger (Casper's uncle), Sarah Sutherland as Emma (the girl that Dominic meets at the harvest, and if the name Sutherland sounds familiar, she is in fact the daughter of Kiefer Sutherland and granddaughter of Donald Sutherland), and Zoe Levin as Tasha (Casper's fifteen year old girlfriend). For a low budget independent film it has a surprisingly good cast of actors, many of which have some decent experiences behind them, and for being in their mid twenties at the time of filming the characters who played the teens really did feel like they were actual teenagers.
To me Beneath The Harvest Sky gives me a look into the small kids I see with their big pickup trucks, wearing baseball caps hanging out around small towns. I grew up on a farm and have lived in small towns as well as big cities, but I was always the "weirdo" and "freak" kid that rode a skateboard and listened to punk music, and I grew up with these kids, but I was always outside of their world, and this film gives a glimpse into the world of the small town teenagers. This film also gives a glimpse into the underground prescription drug trade in working class small towns in the USA. At first I was not liking this film, I felt that the characters, especially Casper had no redeeming qualities and I couldn't find myself caring about any of them, until during the harvest Dominic meets Emma, then I started feeling compassion for him, and seeing him through her eyes, she is probably the character that I could feel I identified the most with of all of them. I struggled with Casper to the very end, I hate that small town tough guy attitude that he has, which is very realistic, and I do think that Emory Cohen played the part very very well, because if felt so authentic. Ultimately I think the biggest thing about this film is that it is authentic, it is a very authentic coming of age drama set in small town America. If someone said that this was a true story coming from a town like Van Buren, or even Calais Maine, I would absolutely believe them, these characters are characters that you see not just here in Maine in small towns from Hollis to Presque Isle, but they are very much the teenages you might meet in Western Massachusettes or New York, rural Pennsylvania, or even Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, or Nebraska. This film is very authentic, and the issues that are played out are realistic, and that is why this film works so well. Overall it was an excellent film, made with a low budget, but it worked really well, and I would highly recommend this film.
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