In The Last Days of Dolwyn, the only film directed by Welsh playwright Emlyn Williams, he casts himself as Rob, returning to a picturesque village of his youth with the object of buying up all the property rights and flooding the place, thus facilitating the most cost-effective flow of water from the nearby dam across the border to England. The locals are offered a new life in Liverpool, only a hundred miles away, but far beyond the experience of most; it’s telling that they seem to lack the inner or financial resources to consider any alternatives, like moving to another, closer village. The ultimate plot mechanics, depending on a cruel twist of fate, are rather unproductively melodramatic (not helped by Williams’ own egregious over-acting), but the film does tap into a broader authenticity, aided by large amounts of untranslated Welsh-language dialogue (the village’s dominant tongue, with some of its inhabitants barely functional in English). The film is notable for Richard Burton in his first screen role, also often speaking Welsh (although much of his time on screen is squandered on a pointless romance) and an early appearance by future Oscar-winner Hugh Griffith, who would seldom be as restrained in his later roles. And the estimable Edith Evans, playing the mother of Burton’s character, is quite touching at times, never more than in a scene where she visits the local gentry to plead her case, and is simply unable to process that a grand-looking house could be burdened by debt, such that its inhabitants would possibly describe themselves as functionally poor. For all its flaws and limitations, the film conveys the tragedy of forced migration, the loss of sense of place and belonging and community; it’s a theme that takes on renewed charge in the era of climate disruption (as the bill comes due, you might say, for so much reckless intervention into peacefully sustainable lives.)
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