A Gravestone Made of Wheat

A couple years ago I met a girl. Or shall I say re-met a girl. The kind of girl who makes you want to figure out what life is about.

One night at her parents house we watched one called Sweet Land, a little known film from a few years ago. Set in the rural Minnesota shortly after WWI, the film follows the difficulties surrounding the marriage plans of a new German immigrant to a "Keillorian" Norwegian Bachelor Farmer.

Stunned by the film's visual and narrative beauty, I scoured the Web for "A Gravestone Made of Wheat," from which the film was adapted. After reading the story, I came to a startling conclusion. For the first time, I think, in my life I thought a film told a better story than a book. Several plot changes, such as the historically compelling additon of a banker who preys upon "Bigger Better Faster" believing farmers creates a conflict between Man and Biblical Beast that the original narrative lacks.

The young couple evokes Wendell Berry's understanding of ecomony in their relationship and work. In the films penultimate scene, the couple brings in the wheat harvest by hand after being ostracized by the rest of the community.

As Khalil Gibran wrote in The Prophet, "Work is love made visible."