Jenny

Now, first things first. This isn't for the squeamish. Jenny lives on a real farm and real things happen on it. We see quite graphically how a calf comes into this world and later on we see how a pig leaves it. Jenny is a farmer's widow, of hardened stock, whom we follow for a few months of winter at the Danish farm she manages with her grown up son. It's a mixed farm of both arable and livestock, and as the Arctic winds blow in off the unforgiving North Sea, they appear to manage to make quite a decent living - even when the snow covers their frozen solid soil. It has more of a docu-drama look to it at times: there is one scene where she is asleep - under about a dozen duvets - whilst the wind howls outside that made me feel positively foetal. I just wanted to curl up snugly amidst her wintery bleakness and hibernate. She hasn't that luxury though and is up and at work every morning. She's a lively character too, is Jenny, and enjoys playing cards with her pals, a bit of musak and even a little "Space 1999" and she is also fortified by the strength of her Christian faith as she regularly attends chapel and tends the graves of her family amidst their neat picket fences. Though this is about a smallholding in Denmark, it could just as easily represent so many rural lives in 1970s Europe where life was harsh but good if you put in the effort, and where the senses of community and inter-reliance are facts of life.