The last occupant of Cumnor Place in Oxford has recently died. Her four adult children come together at the parental home to clear out the house in preparation for selling it. It’s filled to the rafters with scientific and esoteric memorabilia, antique furniture, stacks of documents and family pictures. Every corner breathes the history of this eccentric family, in which the mother, an ambitious scientist, ruled the roost, and the father—a dragon fanatic—provided idiosyncratic stories.
The heirs encounter dragons everywhere they go in this enchanting observational documentary—in paintings and on plates, on notebooks filled with invented “scientific” terminology, in the Beowulf epic, and in family myths about ponds filled with dragons’ blood.
The film follows the Impey family over a period of time, in increasingly emptier rooms filled with a magical soundscape of gusting wind, squeaks and creaks. Each object that passes through the family’s hands unleashes bittersweet tales from an unorthodox youth that brimmed with fabulous adventures, complex family relationships, isolation, and deep-seated fears.
