How does one sleep furiously? How can a peaceful activity such as sleeping be carried out with the frenetic movement the adverb implies? This incongruity is the theme that runs through British director Gideon Koppel’s first feature film – a beautifully meditative study of a landscape in quiet uproar.

In a small farming community in mid-Wales, Koppel’s camera remains static as it observes the life passing in and out of frame. From the business of arable and livestock farming, to conversations over afternoon tea, to Koppel’s mother hanging out the washing, the natural rhythms of daily life are skilfully captured on 35mm film. But this is not a sketchbook of pastoral scenes echoing the rural Wales of yesteryear. The primary school looks likely to close, and the community discuss how to keep the heart of their village alive. It’s a world of gentle competitiveness, with homegrown products and skills being judged first, second and third. Everyone remembers the time before mechanisation, media and holiday homes, but everyone similarly accepts the subsequent changes in lifestyle cannot be ignored. (Even the dependable mobile library providing literary nourishment every time it stops must be able to communicate electronically.)

This poetic film, influenced by Koppel’s conversations with avant-garde Austrian writer Peter Handke, is an outstanding piece of documentary filmmaking which demonstrates optimism and courage within communities in the UK which are undergoing tumultuous changes. Supported by the Film Agency for Wales, it was produced by Margaret Matheson (Abigail’s Party, Scum) and executive produced by Mike Figgis (Timecode, Leaving Las Vegas) and Serge Lalou, associate producer of Être et Avoir. Britain’s alpha male of electronica Aphex Twin provides a deceptively simple soundtrack accompanying the thrum of farm machinery. The overall effect combines the tranquillity and disruption Koppel finds, and suggests a meaning far beyond the semantics of grammar.