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>> WFF puts the focus on vibrant Irish cinema
by JOANNE LATIMER With juicy tax breaks and idyllic scenery, Ireland's film industry helped lead the country's economic boom in the mid-1990s. Building cranes now loom over Dublin and immigration trends are actually reversing--with people going "home" for good. In the North, the newly renovated Northern Ireland Film Commission is scoring production and development funds, while rigorously marketing its six counties as international film locations.
Leading the selection is Deborah Warner's The Last September. Warner is a one-woman theatre juggernaut who directs drama to acclaim at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. This is her first film and her cast of stage pros hasn't let her down. It starts with Maggie Smith. Not bad. She plays Lady Myra, the matriarch alongside Sir Richard Naylor (Michael Gambon), a couple from the Anglo-Irish aristocratic class that remained in the South after the 1916 Rising. The story is about Sir Richard's romantically charged niece (Keeley Hawes) and her conflicted social calendar. Although there is too much frolicking in the countryside for my taste, this film is a layered meditation on the frayed upper classes in Ireland and their divided loyalties. Don't miss Fiona Shaw as the sophisticated visitor from London.
Crime scene John Lynch's Night Train is another sure bet, about an ex-con evading old debts owed to the Irish mob. More mob action can be found in Accelerator, by Vinny Murphy. Murphy's film is about Johnny T, a Belfast boy who likes to nick cars and finds it hard to dodge the law and the paramilitaries. His "retirement" in Spain seems doomed. Making Ends Meet shows another slice of life in the Dublin crime world, as Cal splits his time between helping the elderly, raising his son David and robbing the local post office. For charm alone, see Us Boys, about two bachelor brothers who live 30 miles outside Belfast--but 80 years behind the times. When Stewart Morrow's health starts to decline, his brother Ernie, aged 78, must venture beyond their farm and the rural simplicities that defined their world. It's a small film that makes wise remarks about society's "progress." In the short film section of the program, check out Colin McKeon's Fatal Extraction. McKeon, a Belfast filmmaker to watch, has been busy making a name for himself. He produced The Good Son, which made a splash at Cannes last May, and always has a handful of projects in the works. Judging from his other films I've seen, Fatal Extraction should be an ironic black comedy with a wicked twist just before the final credits.
See the WFF program for complete Focus on Irish Cinema listings |
Shamrock city
It's working. Films from Ireland--both North and South--are making their mark on the world cinema scene. This year, the World Film Festival wisely chose to focus on Ireland in its sidebar selection, so Montrealers who can't wait for CineGael (the city's annual Irish film fest) have reason to smile.