Good Vibrations (2013)
Good Vibrations falls into what I like to call the ‘Mary and Max’ category. Namely pretty much every time I recommended either of these films people have adored them. The best Irish film of 2013 is also one of the best films released in that year. A glorious warm hug a film that that doesn’t avoid the grim reality of Northern, it rather fights it with one of the all-time great soundtracks and a fantastic lead performance from Richard Dormer. By turns funny, sad, emotional and spirited this is a film that will leave you with the biggest of grins on your face. But darkness is never far away, either in showing the cost of violence in Belfast or the selfishness of Terri Hooley himself. But most of all this is a film that will take you back to a time when people genuinely thought music could change the world. See it and then, similarly to John Peel, see it again.
In a House that Ceased to be (2015)
In cinema, there is little more powerful than the unexpected. The story of Christina Noble, In a House that Ceased to Be had the feel of a hagiography, with stories to warm the heart and make us laugh. Instead, director Ciarín Scott plunges us without warning into the hellish nature of Ireland’s collective past, a poisonous and disturbing partnership between State and Church that still resonates to this day, a wrecking ball with a reckoning still to come. Noble is a great subject, in turn funny, warm hearted, honest and extremely raw. There will be many tears shed watching this, be they cathartic or with righteous anger. But this is not a film full of misery. We do get anger and sadness but also hope, genuine decency and understanding. It is an outstanding film, full of grace and heart. Utterly essential. Ciarín Scott’s next documentary is called Step by Step, which will hopefully be released in 2018.
Silence (2012)
Any regular reader of my work will know how much I adore the work of the wonderful Irish filmmaker Pat Collins. His 2012 film Silence was my introduction to his work and I have loved everything I have seen since. Silence is an episodic, impressionistic film and the emotional and physical journey undertaken by lead character Eoghan (Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhride) is the heart of the story. The film begins with Eoghan recording loud and bustling sounds in the busy city of Berlin and ends with him in a quiet house in the northwest of Ireland. How and why he gets there is the essence of this quite beautiful film. Beautifully shot, the landscape of Ireland moves away tourist board postcards and becomes rough, wild and more wonderful as Eoghan makes his journey home. This is a deeply poetic and personal film, superbly edited by Tadhg O’Sullivan and will reward anyone who falls into its wonderful pace. With the release of Song of Granite late last year, Pat Collins has moved up another level to become one of the best filmmakers this country has.
The Great Wall (2015)
Speaking of Tadhg O’Sullivan, he managed the not inconsiderable feat of getting two films into the 2015 Dublin Film Festival, The Great Wall and Yximalloo (co-directed with Feargal Ward). Both are worth seeing but it is The Great Wall that I will be returning to again and again, with a subject matter that seems more prescient with each passing year. Using Franz Kafka’s The Building of Great Wall of China short story as a jumping off point, O’Sullivan’s film takes in various parts of the world and how walls are constructed both as visible and invisible impediments to movement. The film begins at the Melilla border fence, an area of Spain on the African continent, whose border is there to prevent immigration to mainland Europe. Visits to other, deliberately unrecognisable parts of Europe put subjects such as the militarisation of police and the monitoring of citizens at the heart of the film. The films is a staggering achievement and demands to be seen. Let us hope there is a new film from O’Sullivan in the offing.
48 CinÉireann / March 2018