Millican Dalton: A Sublime Midlife Crisis
The relevance of a 20th century cave-dweller to environmental aesthetics.
Wednesday, 23 December 2020
At the mouth of the cave at Borrowdale, May 2020. Photograph: Lewis Eaton.
On a swelteringly hot day in the North Western Fells of The Lake District, the gaping mouth of a cave offered itself as a refuge and swallowed us mercifully into its cool damp interior. Caves are otherworldly places. This particular cave, set into the hillside of Castle Crag, allows you to peer out at the gently swaying trees and glimmering daylight of the outside world from a viewing point void of light and sound. The daytrip itself had been to seek refuge in The Lakes; an attempt at replacing the stagnancy of a locked-down city summer with a more welcome, less claustrophobic, kind of tranquillity. We spent a few minutes scrambling around on the siltstone, marvelling at the height of the cave walls and exchanging the obligatory comments about feeling small in big spaces. On leaving, I noticed a large, flat stone covered in scrawlings. At the centre in neat, deeply-etched letters read ‘Don’t Waste Words, Jump to Conclusions’ with dozens of smaller sections of writing surrounding this. Each gave names and dates, with many faded with age and dissolving back into the stone’s surface. It was from a frantic Googling during the car ride home that I came to find out we had happened across a sort-of pilgrimage place for hikers: the cave in which a man had lived out his summers for over forty consecutive years.
In 1904, at the age of thirty-six, Millican Dalton gave up his life as an insurance clerk in London in order to dedicate himself to The Great Outdoors. Having spent part of his childhood in Nenthead, the North Pennines, he found life and work in the capital stifling in comparison. From then on Dalton split his year, spending the summer months in the cave under Castle Crag and winters in a canvas hut in Buckinghamshire. Far from your conventional hermit, Dalton was an active and sociable member of the community. He organised camping excursions for the outdoors novice which included teaching hiking, rock climbing, rafting and how to forage for food. What I found extraordinary for the time was that these excursions didn’t exclude women, with one of Dalton’s advertisements for a mountaineering course stating his views bluntly: “Ladies are welcome to the camp. There is nothing new in ladies camping, the custom being at least 10,000 years old.” This rare indiscriminate approach led to Dalton forging a long-lasting friendship with geologist Mabel Barker, who over the years consistently recommended Dalton’s courses to women students and friends.
Dalton and Barker atop a needle, 1913. The Mable Barker Collection.
REVIEW
Limbo
Director Ben Sharrock has utilised the tragicomic genre to it’s best, most poignant effect.
by Maya Fletcher-Smith | 08 August 2021
Still taken from Limbo, directed by Ben Sharrock. Image: TIFF.
Traipsing down an empty road across a harsh Hebridean landscape, Syrian musician and refugee Omar (Amir El-Masry) clutches his grandfather’s oud with his broken, plaster cast-bound arm. The instrument hasn’t left Omar’s side since his arrival at a remote Scottish refugee centre, and yet, even after the cast is removed, playing seems an insurmountable task – the joyous sound of cultural celebration has become a painful reminder of home, or of how distant home has become.
Director Ben Sharrock has pulled off an extraordinary feat with this beautifully bleak tragicomedy. A desolate Scottish backdrop dominates the screen, with the Bergmanesque use of scenery expressing both a physical and psychological solitude. Frequent long shots are almost unbearably drawn-out, complimenting the sense of anticipation and frustration experienced by the refugees. Alongside exploring such serious subject matter, Limbo is dappled with flecks of a deadpan humour which, although occasionally missing the mark, for the most part works well to point out the absurdity of British culture and blatant flaws in the handling of the migrant crisis. Trapped, unable to work, overcome with worry for loved ones overseas, Omar is required to attend comically patronising cultural assimilation classes. Things of any real use – like a winter coat to protect against the bitter Scottish weather – are harder to come by.
Still taken from Limbo, directed by Ben Sharrock. Image: TIFF.
Many have commented that Limbo’s cinematography and overall stylisation closely parallels that of Wes Anderson’s work. Admittedly, the similarities are hard to ignore. The overall effect is very similar; the symmetrical composition, the awkward pacing and a harmonious colour palette of retro-inspired pastels can all be considered hallmarks of Anderson, or of his frequent collaborator, cinematographer Robert Yeoman. But Limbo deserves better than being reduced to this comparison. It can be argued the directors have simply drawn inspiration from the same sources as, for example, there are elements of Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki’s early work in both Anderson’s and Sharrock’s stylisation. Moreover, the prolonged close-up shots of El-Masry’s extraordinary deadpan face are more reminiscent of Buster Keaton and work excellently to convey Omar’s stoic attitude in the face of terrifying uncertainty.
Beyond aesthetics, Limbo also provokes thought on how victims of humanitarian tragedies are treated in their adoptive home countries. One migrant makes the painful observation that refugees soon get ‘passed their sell-by dates’. No longer priority cases, they’re rounded up and kept out of the way in refugee centres. Out of sight, out of mind. It’s a fair point; we’re all to some extent guilty of focusing our attention on the latest international travesty to the detriment of others. Perhaps guilty of assuming that humanitarian crises resolve themselves just as soon as they recede from view in mainstream news sources. It soon becomes apparent to the neglected Omar that even Syrian refugees are no longer a priority. Upon enquiring into the status of his application for asylum, he is promptly told by an automated message to hang up the phone if he has been waiting for less than thirty days. Outside, the wind wails and rattles the phone box windows. Fellow refugee, Afghan Freddie Mercury superfan Farhad (Vikash Bhai), has been waiting for thirty-two months and five days. Limbo highlights the reality that a person’s suffering doesn’t suddenly expire once they no longer make headline news.
Ben Sharrock has utilised the tragicomic genre to its best, arguably most poignant effect. Most depictions of the refugee experience take a gritty angle, focusing on the danger from which migrants flee or their perilous journey to asylum. Instead, Limbo is infused with a wry humour and wit that humanises the refugees stuck at the centre. The focus isn’t their victimhood, but their character. For much of the film, Omar appears simply dumbstruck by the sheer mundanity of this new, half-life: the condescending centre workers, the spice aisle at the local supermarket which consists of salt, pepper, and Colman’s English Mustard, the endless episodes of Friends and bowls of Cheerios. Yes, he made it out of Syria alive, but Omar is now being faced with perhaps the most difficult task of all – rebuilding his life in a world which will never be the same again. This overwhelming feeling is what Limbo so viscerally evokes. With fingers tentatively plucking at the oud’s strings for the first time in weeks, Omar waits, reflects, is slowly consumed with worry. We share in his unease.
Still taken from Limbo, directed by Ben Sharrock. Image: TIFF.