AU BORD DU MONDE

Several hundred meters long, several hundred meters high, such is St. Kilda. A paradise for seabirds. Hell for men.
Hell? Perhaps not. For thousands of years, a community of men and women peoples this island. A particular osmosis becomes established: the taming of the wild sheep, the growing of a few parcels of potatoes, the harvesting of peat… But above all the hunting of migratory birds, barehanded, right up the cliffs.
Over and beyond the symbol of man dominating nature, or the coming end of traditional ways of life, the film invites us to reflect on insularity. St. Kilda – was she not, once her unique beauty and profound difference were revealed – that “utopia” about which sing poets, philosophers and travelers alike?
An island burst forth from the waves, strange and terrible, as in the first days of the Creation. An island, medieval symbol of renunciation and spirituality. But more importantly, a real island, populated until the evacuation in 1930 by a community of just a handful of families, and where survival depended on an unendingly struggle against the birds, solitude and the elements.
Today, the island belongs to the National Trust for Scotland. Volunteers come every summer to help repair the ruins of the village. But no-one comes to St. Kilda completely by chance, and the island proves more often than not the ultimate goal of some inner journey.