I Know Where I’m Going! (1945), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is a romantic comedy starring Wendy Hiller as Joan Webster, a focused and aspirational woman who heads from urban Manchester to the wild west coast islands of Scotland to marry a businessman. She becomes stranded on the island of Isle of Mull, the high winds preventing her from making the final crossing. There she encounters the locals and enters a will-they/won’t-they relationship with Torquil MacNeil, played by Roger Livesey, the Laird of the island she is aiming for.

Sandwiched between A Canterbury Tale (1944) and A Matter of Life and Death (1946), I Know Where I’m Going! doesn’t have the sublime pseudo-mysticism of the former or the gaudy fireworks of the latter, but instead condenses its narrative into a subtle character study and a  diatribe against consumerism. There’s a hint of Whisky Galore (1949) about its presentation of the Scottish rural community, isolated but welcoming of strangers, but it’s somehow more honest and less patronising in its depiction of the locals, great as Alexander Mackendrick’s film may be.

The film climaxes with a genuinely tense boat journey through a gale and a genuinely touching final reconciliation between the two main characters. It’s not eclipsed A Canterbury Tale (1944) for me, but it has reminded me of the range of Powell and Pressburger’s talents.