One Sunday evening in 2005, Scots musician Edwyn Collins suffered a burst blood vessel in the brain.The documentary film, The Possibilities are Endless follows his slow path back to recovery. Collins himself will participate in a Q & A after tomorrow's 6.30pm IFI screening.
The Edinburgh-born singer and guitarist was the former front-man of the late seventies band Orange Juice, and a successful solo musician in his own right. 1994's A Girl Like You was his biggest hit.
Collins' partner Grace Maxwell returned home that day in 2005 to find Collins lying on the floor. After six days in intensive care, the musician went into a coma and he would spend six months in hospital. He was diagnosed with acute aphasia, which meant he was unable to talk coherently. Much more serious was the fact that bleeding might start again in his brain and he could die.
Then began the slow path back, as the musician struggled to recover memory which had been erased. He could say “yes” and “no”, or he would repeat his partner’s name “Grace Maxwell.” He repeatedly uttered the curious phrase “the possibilities are endless,” hence the film's title.
Edward Lovelace and James Hall who made The Possibilities are Endless, already have to their credit a hugely successful film about Katy Perry. They approach Collins and his illness from a sidelong route. Effectively through the first 40 minutes or so, they rely on voiceover, based on interviews with the musician conducted in 2011. Filming proper began in the summer of 2013.
As Collins struggles to talk, we see a sequence of beautiful images unfold, of the sea-tide, birds, deer, a deserted harbour, winter snow, sandy, deserted beaches, quiet green pastures and long-stemmed pink wild flowers, swaying in the breeze.
Many of these rapturous scenes were filmed in the harbour town of Helmsdale on Scotland’s Sutherland coast where Collins’ family have owned a house for generations. The musician spent summers there as a young boy. “I remember the shoreline in Helmsdale, watching the seabirds wheeling and soaring, nursing a green finch back to health, “ he recalls early on in the film.
Edwyn and Grace's 23-year-old son, William Collins plays his father as a young man in lightly re-created scenes, while actress Yasmin Paige (Submarine) plays the young Grace. They have barely a line between them, as the real, adult Grace and Edwyn do most of the talking.
Inevitably, there is the comeback gig, and Grace, while by no means a negative spirit, is realistic. “I miss the old Edwyn, there is no point lying about that,” she says. Yet in the final scenes of the film we see the couple in their parked car, sharing a joke.
Before the stroke, Collins was positive there was no afterlife. “Now I’m not, we’ll see what happens, “ he says.
Edwyn Collins will visit the IFI tomorrow, Friday November 28, to take part in a Question and Answer session, following the 6.30pm screening.
Paddy Kehoe
