Miscellaneous Bestselling film about the healing power of nature

"The Outrun" tells the story of an alcoholic who fights her way back into life. And what's more, the film is about the healing power of nature. Swiss cinematographer Yunus Roy Imer explains how he captured the wind, sea and landscape.

Waves, wind, a dull rumble, a handful of houses in a barren landscape that is so similar in color to the sea and the sky that the boundaries are barely discernible. Green, blue, gray - it all "seems desaturated at first". This is how Swiss cameraman Yunus Roy Imer describes his first impression of nature on the Orkney Islands in the far north of Scotland. As "so reduced that it almost seems a bit boring at first".

Nature in book and film

This is precisely the main focus of the literary adaptation "The Outrun", which is now showing in cinemas. After all, nature is also central to the memoirs of Scottish author and journalist Amy Liptrot, on which the film of the same name is based. Published in 2016, the debut bestseller (German: "Nachtlichter") falls into the category of "nature writing" thanks to its attentive observations of the landscape, animals and plants and its intensive examination of them.

In it, Liptrot not only describes what she sees, but also the healing power that nature has on her. After ten years of alcohol addiction in London, where she worked as a journalist and lost her job, she manages to kick her addiction and find her way back to life in her old, rugged homeland.

German filmmaker Nora Fingscheidt ("Systemsprenger", "The Unforgivable") considered nature and science to be a very important narrative level even before she started writing the screenplay together with Amy Liptrozu, says Yunus Roy Imer in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency. The internationally active filmmaker studied with Fingenscheidt and has realized numerous projects since 2008. For them as a well-rehearsed team, nature on the Orkneys was "an exciting new element".

London versus the Orkneys

Part of the filming took place in London. After that, the trip to the Orkney Islands felt like a journey into another world. "Depending on the size of the island, there is no traffic or neon signs, hardly any trees and the grass is flattened by the constant gusts of wind," says Imer. "So you can only make out the wind by looking at the waves." In a film, it could only be shown by placing a person with hair or sufficiently wide clothes in the picture. "So the sound was a very important element."

Yunus Roy Imer already had a few ideas in mind for the nature shots before filming. That he would use a drone, for example, to show places that would otherwise be impossible to reach. Or to show how the waves roll towards the land. Or rather: rumbling - Amy Liptrop uses this expression several times in her book.

However, many of the shots were also taken spontaneously in between when Imer went for walks equipped with a camera. A local nature filmmaker and photographer was hired for the underwater shots of the seals. It was a clear requirement of bird and nature conservation organizations that nature, especially the birds, should remain as undisturbed as possible.

Showing nature is one thing, communicating its healing power is another. "The book consists largely of inner monologues on this subject," says Yunus Roy Imer. The biggest challenge was to externalize these without becoming clichéd.

Original locations on the Orkneys

In an article for the British newspaper "The Guardian", Amy Liptrop wrote about precisely this "central problem". She mentioned the scene in which the renamed main character Rona (Saoirse Ronan) boards the ferry to return to London. How she takes off her headphones and listens to the sounds of nature. "Gripped by longing, she runs off the ferry before it leaves," wrote Liptrot. And added that this never really happened, but the inclusion of fictional elements helped to convey her feelings for nature in the film.

"The Outrun" takes the audience to the original locations - to the farm where Amy Liptrot grew up, to the house where she recovered from her alcoholism and to the kitchen table where she wrote her memoirs. The fact that the film constantly switches between flashbacks, i.e. the party life in London, and the withdrawal in seclusion, helps to emphasize the harsh climate in contrast to the city.

Yunus Roy Imer experienced this change of scenery first-hand during filming and says: "Life is totally relaxed on the small Orkney Islands, you don't lock the car or the front door and just kind of let yourself go." His hair has grown really long during this time and his astonishment at what people still want in a big city has also grown.

*This text by Miriam Margani, Keystone-SDA, was realized with the help of the Gottlieb and Hans Vogt Foundation.

SDA