Opening narration and the progressive vistas drawing us into primordial, archetypal wildernesses set a wonderful fable-like tone, which the extra-careful compositions, the extra-vivid colours and the extra-tender totality most masterfully sustain, here is an idealized coming of age, full of births and deaths and sorrows and redemptions, seemingly quoting the illustrations from the original Rawlins to remind us as strongly as possible that this is a story, and that stories are very often true after all; the Ford like in town fight and the dress-fitting hijinx are undistressingly incongruous knockabout, Ma’s lame jokes are a humour more in keeping with the general proceedings, which include that amazing Jarman jr. face, the glorious overstatement of the post-flood “here comes the sun”, the extrinsically and/or intrinsically effective Mendelssohn (Midsummer Night’s overture) when Jody first runs with fawn, and those incredibly and endlessly moving lines as delivered by the most nobly handsome patriarch: “when I was a child, I spoke as a child”, “it’s like food and drink to have you home”