In Tim Robinson: Connemara the titular writer sets out to walk and map the ruggedly beautiful Connemara area. The soundscape here is as important as the landscape. Sue Stenger’s music co-exists with Robinson reading extracts from his books overlaid on extraordinary shots of Connemara’s somewhat alien landscape. Taken together this is a hypnotic delight. The place feels vast, the visitors (Robinson, Collins himself and his camera) feel comparably tiny in it.
Tim Robinson: Connemara
There are some wonderful archival close-ups of faces, when faces were faces that seem as impenetrable as the land they inhabit. And it is the land that is the star here, broken down into black and white contours by Robinson who has walked it for over 30 years and is still in awe of it. Robinson is one of the many writers drawn to this part of the world. He has written three books about the area and some graceful passages are recited over breath taking shots of the land. Tim Robinson: Connemara is by its definition a film more narrow in scope than the two films that would follow. But its power is enhanced by its connection to those films. That feeling of self-containment ebbs away when the three films are approached together.
CinÉireann / November 2017 21
Tim Robinson: Connemara
Facing the land and yourself: the films of Pat Collins