Trinity Film Review

tfr

September 2010

TrinityFilmReview.com

The Ireland Issue inside: Daire McNab’s The Gingerbread Men TFR_Irish CInema.indd 1

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TCD Environmental Society Get into the Green Scene!

Visit our Freshers’ Week stand subscribe at duenv.csc.tcdlife.ie email: environment@csc.tcd.ie

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Contents

A note from the Editor This is our first Freshers’ Week issue, and whether you’re coming back as a faithful reader, or this is the first copy of TFR you’ve ever picked up and held close to your heart in eager anticipation of just how much your life is about to change for the more gloriously film-informed, i.e. better, you see before you a whole new TFR.

News p4

For starters, we’ve doubled the number of our yearly issues and added a spanking new website, trinityfilmreview.com, to our arsenal of awesomeness. We’ll be constantly updating the website for news and reviews of movies in Dublin, as well as posting some nifty new articles and hosting our very first Video Spoof Challenge. Do check it out (if only to see your editor smearing rashers all over her face).

... & Finally p5

Overrated: Garage p6

It is in this spirit of rejuvenation that we’ve focused our issue on Irish Cinema and its discontents. Whether Irish films are terra incognita for you, or you’ve seen every movie Colm Meaney’s ever been in, we hope this issue leaves you with some fresh views on Irish Cinema, and maybe even a few ideas about where you’d like to see it go next.

I, for one, feel the time is ripe for a New Irish Cinema; but I want to know what you think. If you’d like to write for TFR, well, we on the editorial team would only love to have you onboard. Email us at trinityfilmreview@gmail.com.

I hope you enjoy the issue!

Ciara Barrett Editor

Underrated: p7

The Matchmaker

We Don’t Drink That Much, Do We?: Irishness Onscreen p8 Breaking the Mould: Daire McNab on The Gingerbread Men p10

The Cast and Crew Editor: Ciara Barrett Deputy Editors: Cathal Wogan and Ines Novacic

Design and Layout: Ciara Barrett Website: Conor O’Kelly and Ciara Barrett

Thou Shalt Create Cinema: An Irish Cinema Manifesto p12

With Special Thanks To:

Robert Kearns Aran Quinn Conor O’Kelly Simone Cameron-Coen Emma Keaveney Sinead Moloney Ed Barrett Virginia Shields Zaki Mahfoud and Trinity Publications

Cover Image:

The Gingerbread Men

Reviews p14

Interview: Rory Keenan p18 3

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NEWS Reel to Real

On September 13th the Arts Council called for submissions for the Reel Art scheme. Launched in 2008, Reel Art provides film artists with the opportunity to make creative and experimental documentaries on an artistic theme.

Operated in association with Filmbase and the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, Reel Art will award three selected films with grants of up to €80,000 each. The three winning films will also premiere at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival in February 2012.

Those interested in applying are invited to attend an information session at Filmbase on September 21st. Representatives from the Arts Council and JDIFF will outline the purpose and priorities of the award and will answer questions on the scheme. Anyone interested in attending is required to register via email to info@ reelart.ie, or check out www.reelart.ie. The deadline for applications has been set for October 18th.

The Irish Emigrate

After Toronto 2010, Oscar buzz may surround Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan or Mark Romanek’s Never Let me Go, but Irish films also enjoyed success at the Film Festival. Risteard O’Domhnall’s documentary The Pipe, Juanita Wilson’s war drama As If I Am Not There, Tom Hall’s dark comedy Sensation and the Irish coproductions Lapland Odyssey and Essential Killing, were all featured in the line-up of Toronto Film Fest, which ran from 9th -19th September. Variety praised Sensation as a “hot, droll delight”, and called The Pipe a “beautifully composed and valiantly photographed” feature.

We’re doing equally well at the Helsinki International Film Festival, running from 16th-26th September. Included in the jam-packed programme are Tom Moore’s Oscar-nominated The Secret of Kells, Neil Jordan’s Ondine, and Ken Wardrop’s criti-

with Ines Novacic

As if I’m Still Here Wasn’t Controversial Enough…

Most of us will agree that Casey Affleck’s documentary about brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix is pretty cringey, even as an idea. Turns out that Affleck himself may be pretty cringey, as two women filed sexual-harassment lawsuits against him for alleged incidents on the set of I’m Still Here. Following the release of the film, producer Amanda White and cinematog-

rapher Magdalena Gorka reportedly held a secret meditation with Affleck and his legal entourage, which resulted in a settlement out of court. White and Gorka will still receive credit for their work on the film despite having quit because of what they felt was a hostile work environment. Originally, Affleck faced a figure of $4.5 million from the women’s combined lawsuits. Now it seems his only threat to financial security is I’m Still Here.

cally acclaimed His & Hers. Even England wants us: it was announced that Irish films will have a strong presence at the 54th BFI London Film Festival, which will take place from 13th-28th October.

Look, a Tourist!

The trailer for The Tourist is finally out, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies. The story was adapted from a French thriller and crafted by The Lives of Others director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (yes, that is his actual, legal name). Initial response has overwhelmingly boiled down to: Who even needs a story line when Depp and Jolie are romantically involved? Thank God for that, because the preview is hardly promising.

In plain English, the film looks bad. But we do see Johnny looking different: he may seem older and more rounded, but it’s re-

freshing to see him without scissor-hands, mad-hats, and a barbershop blade. He is tourist Frank Taylor who unwittingly gets involved with Elise (Jolie), a sophisticated English beauty moonlighting as bad-ass international spy.

At this stage, Ange must find it hard to get out of character. Let’s just hope it does better than Mr & Mrs Smith, and a similar “incident” doesn’t occur following the film’s European release in early 2011.

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...& Finally Godard stung by News of the World

French celluloid legend Jean-Luc Godard has been pinned as a secret lover of Dandy comics. The revelation has come through the latest News of the World sting operation, in which the director was secretly filmed organising his pristine collection of Dandys in order of the politically oppositional content of their Desperate Dan story strands. Godard, who is famed for his artistic and political contributions

by Holy Diver

to cinema over a career of five decades, originally denied the accusations but has spoken more openly about his love of the Dandy over recent days.

“It has always been my favourite,” said Godard of the long-running children’s comic. “No other literary or media text brings the plight of the working classes to the fore in such a way. I don’t understood why Dennis the Menace of the Beano appealed to people. He is just an anti-social animal. Desperate Dan, on the other hand, holds a complex but effective work-to-eat

significance for the entire proletariat. He is teleological goodness and honesty at odds with the world.”

Over the coming months, Godard is expected to publicly announce his directing of a Bananaman animated picture, inspired by the Dandy’s Bananaman character. The fantasy flick, a joint venture between Pixar and Godard’s own production company, is set to be the first Pixar film to feature both full frontal nudity and an intra-urethral shot from a half banana, half human superhero.

New career turn for Phoenix

Actor turned rapper Joaquin Phoenix has announced that he will enter the world of competitive eating early in 2011. The news comes after months of muted speculation over the Walk the Line star’s future, during which time he publicly clashed with professional eater Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi. While neither party has disclosed the origin of their mutual hatred, a bitter war of words has developed, leading Phoenix to begin training for a January showdown. Phoenix has elected to eat copious amounts in the lead up to the event, stating that he has to “get really out of shape, pretty much amorphous.”

Brimming with confidence, Kobayashi has allowed his rival to choose their poison. Media sources suggest that chilli cheese fries will be the former actor’s weapon of choice, but this has not yet been officially confirmed by his camp. The historic event will be broadcast in “glorious” High Definition on Sky Sports in the new year.

Burton and Depp to bring Provost’s life to big screen

In an internet press release on his official website, Tim Burton has revealed that he will begin filming a new project in Dublin later in the year. This latest collaboration will see his longtime muse Johnny Depp play the role of Trinity Provost John Hegarty in what will undoubtedly be a fascinating biopic. The working title is Hego: The Toast and The Cash.

“I mean, when the idea came to me it was an instant winner,” said Burton. “I knew Johnny was the man for the part and

when I asked him he immediately began licking my finger, signalling his acceptance of the role.

“Hegarty has led such a fascinating life.

His ascent through Ireland’s academic culture coincided with his decent into toast addiction. Like, by the time he became the Head of the college’s Physics Department, he was absolutely toasted 24/7. We want to look into the rocky road of unjustifiable wealth and toast addiction. And obviously it will be a musical.”

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O V E R R AT E D Oisín Murphy throws Garage out with the garbage.

An overrated Irish film is not hard to find. Our tendency towards the inflated evaluation of domestic filmmaking is a self-perpetuating one, leaving audiences indifferent towards the hyperbole-ravaged, entry-level film geese trotted out by our native industry, and filmmakers and critics alike complacent in the immutable, self-congratulatory expository routine the utter nakedness of which nobody seems inclined to comment on.

Lenny Abrahamson’s Garage from 2008 is a wonderfully rich example of this trend, in that it is by no means a bad film per se, but the lavish praise visited upon it by the Irish critical community and, puzzlingly, some ancillary foreign organs, is both purblind and unwarranted in the extreme. Criticisms of thematic banality and condescending pathos are certainly valid, though ultimately based on subjective interpretational grounds. The ultimate and vital flaw of the film is its steadfast refusal to offer anything beyond bleakness and fatalism - it illustrates much, but offers nothing beyond surface tragedy. Its brush strokes are broad to the point of crudeness, depicting rural Ireland as a waste-

land of passive-aggressive cruelty, sexual repression and alcoholism, both unable and unwilling to foster the innocent slowwittedness of Pat Shortt’s Josie. In the end, we are left with nothing but a resignation to the tragic contrivance at the film’s core, an acquiescent sigh escaping the collective lungs of Ireland’s endlessly judgemental

that are our own only by vague association. The experience of watching Garage, for the fair-weather begrudge, is one of smug indignation, aware that the cruel, rural community is getting it in the neck, or would be if they were anywhere to be seen in the cinema, but that the film certainly has nothing to say about him/her: its actual audience. Broad social criticism, indeed social criticism of any kind, is cast to the wayside in favour of a narrative of personal tragedy with pretensions of wider relevance. This is all the more confusing in the context of the Abrahamson/ O’Halloran oeuvre when one considers how the shortcomings of Garage are entirely absent in their superb earlier feature, Adam and Paul.

So, what is Garage, then? As I said, it’s certainly not a bad film, but its many flaws are wilfully not made manifest by an Irish critical community which knows only self-interest and the large-scale abdication of hermeneutical objectivity. Saying that, as far as being over-rated is concerned, it’s got plenty of company.

Oisín Murphy

“As a nation, we seem to have an insatiable capacity for self-flagellation” middle-classes, whose poisoned chalice of moral guardianship of the country weighs heavily on hunched shoulders in the same way that a fur-coat does.

We seem to have an insatiable capacity for misdirected, equivocal self-flagellation, as a nation (see also Prosperity, the Abrahamson/O’Halloran collaboration for television), a trait which is selfevident by its attendant lack of public will towards tangible social or political change.

In other words, we enjoy dramatising our shortcomings as a self-satisfying means to illustrate our capacity for reflective morality, while directing such “introspection” towards pillars of our “national identity” 6

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U N D E R R AT E D Ciara Barrett has a secret crush on The Matchmaker Before Leap Year, P.S. I Love You and even Laws of Attraction, there was The Matchmaker. I want to make it clear, before talking about The Matchmaker, that I find each one of the previouslymentioned three films largely repulsive.

And while I’ll spend the majority of this time defending The Matchmaker on the grounds that it is “not as bad” as more recent generic offerings, that doesn’t take away from the fact that I do really like it in its own right. You can revoke my B.A. Hons. in Film Studies right now, but I’m not gonna stop lovin’ this movie.

Like Leap Year, et al, The Matchmaker is based on the simple premise that an uptight career-minded young woman, here played by the delightfully Gen-X (if you like that sort of thing) Janeane Garofalo, might go searching for something decidely unromantic in the wilds of Ireland but will, without fail, stumble upon true love with a delightfully roguish (if you like that sort of thing) Irishman who teaches her how to orgasm and unwind, in that order. You could write a solid PhD dissertation on the semiological cultural connotations imbedded in such plots, but then you’d have to watch

P.S. I Love You without the pretence of an ironic stance against it.

It is The Matchmaker’s inherent irony and self-reflexiveness that raises it above its peers in my estimation; it allows for the viewer to take simple pleasure in the familiarity of its love story, as well a certain scopophilic pleasure in the beauty of the Irish countryside, which necessarily takes up a great deal of screen time.

The cutesy-quaintness of the local villagers in Ballinagra (yeah, that’s right, the Town of Love) is offset by heroine Marcy’s (Garofalo) rolling eyes. She barely conceals her scepticism of her Boston politician/boss’s enthusiasm for finding his ancestors - name: McGlory back in the old country (the quest she is on). And, unlike in future films wherein the heroine’s initially cynical nature is broken down/shown to be “unnatural” by a soulful, romantic attachment to the local laddie, Marcy’s distrust of all things “Oirishy” turns out to be well-founded: her boss McGlory reveals that his ancestors were really Hungarians who had their name changed at Ellis Island; his only motive for “finding” his nonexistent Irish relatives is purely good PR.

But what I also like about The Matchmaker is that it’s not all cynicism and sarcasm. There are moments of genuine appreciation and respect for aspects of Irish culture rarely represented in Hollywood cinema, such as the scene in which native men of the Aran Islands sing sean nos songs in competition for Marcy’s attention. And I didn’t even mean that sarcastically myself. It’s a small nod to an aspect of Irish culture little-known outside of Ireland - where most everyone thinks Irish music begins at “diddly” and ends at “aye” - but I think it’s just lovely.

Okay, “just lovely” probably shouldn’t be my best compliment to this film which I’m trying to defend. “Just lovely” isn’t a far cry from condescending and imperialist when directed at an entire nation by a distant observer - which is exactly what P.S. I Love You and Leap Year are in relation to their subject of Ireland. However, The Matchmaker doesn’t (just) see the Irish through rose-coloured glasses, but also for a complex culture and people.

Also, it makes fun of Irish-Americans.

I can’t get enough of that snarky selfdeprecation.

Ciara Barrett, Irish-American

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We Don’t Drink That Much, Do We? Ines Novacic explores the elusive nature of “Irishness” in modern Irish cinema.

Dessie Curley sits in the pub with his mates, downing pints and voicing his worries about his young pregnant daughter Sharon. (The Snapper) After lots of confusion involving buses being stoned, an attempted bank robbery, and Maura coming to terms with her ‘tache, everyone joyfully drinks in the pub, watching a wheelchair race. (Intermission) According to the online database “Irish in Film”, there has been an increased interest globally in recent years in the “Irish image”.

Variety published that “Irish cinema has quietly come of age”, and The Irish Times announced the “healthy presence” of Irish films at the upcoming 2010 Toronto film festival. Sure lads, we’re doing the Irish Film Board proud. And yet, this kind of praise can’t seem to silence a question that keeps popping into my head after watching each Colin Farrell or Brendan Gleeson flick: what is an Irish film, exactly?

While so-called “Irish films” can constitute any film set in Ireland, with an Irish actor or dealing with an Irish topic, I’d like to narrow down the definition to this: films made in Ireland by the Irish, about Ireland and the Irish. Even more specifically, I’d like to look at representations of Irishness in the wave of “real” Irish films that were made after the Irish Film Board was first estab-

lished in 1981.

The Commitments, My Left Foot, and The Crying Game—some of the most popular of “Irish” films—were in fact all financed by non-Irish capital in the period 1987-

1993, when the Irish Film Board was MIA. Contemporary blockbusters that invoke “Irishness”, such as Leap Year, P.S. I Love You, or Gangs of New York, also owe more

“What is

Irish Cinema, exactly?” to foreign cinema houses and non-Irish investment. To combat such issues, Bord Scannan na hEireann has been asserting cinematic Irishness by advancing films that

often present a narrow and localised view of modern Irish existence. Rather than clarifying the nature of Irish films, the likes of Perrier’s Bounty (2009) further complicate the nature of Irish films, and the figure of the “Irish”.

Think of The Snapper and Intermission. Or The Van. Or Adam and Paul. These films are limited to portrayals of life in northside Dublin, where the pub is refuge number one, and concepts such as nationalism are a thing of the past. Mirroring the path of Irish literature, that went from McGahernesque depictions of rural life to Roddy Doyle and Dermot The Snapper Bolger’s urban, working-class struggles, gone are the cinematic days of Jim Sheridan’s The Field. Even The Wind that Shakes the Barley favoured historical inaccuracy for the sake of satisfying an audience with an appetite for Irish “struggles”.

After all, we can easily identify with Colm Meaney’s characters that have become all the rage: sitting in the pub, pint glued to hand, bemoaning life’s batterings.

While conventional genre is virtually absent from modern Irish films, filmmakers’ use of repetitive narrative formulas has secured them a definitive trademark. That, and the appearance of either Cillian Murphy, Colm Meaney, Brendan Gleeson, or

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Colin Farrell in most popular flicks. With northside accents. Often sitting in pubs.

Modern Irish cinema has become a quasigenre, and this mostly obscures the existence of a contemporary cinema that reflects the way things really are in modern, bourgeois Ireland, not just the trials of workingclass Northsiders.

While some film critics lament the lack of an historically-rooted nationalist identity in contemporary cinema, I worry more about the status of “other” modern Irish voices, that have emerged nationwide as a result of two particular phenomena: the Celtic Tiger and globalisation. Yes, Once dealt multiculturalism, but it really was once that such a plot was seen in such a popular film. And while literature can boast the likes of Ross O’Caroll-Kelly, the outlook of Celtic Tigerized Dublin, and rich Ireland in general, is virtually absent from a filmic standpoint.

With the promulgation of Northside tragicomic “Irish” films in contemporary popular culture, “Irishness” is often experienced through the Adams and Pauls of Finglas or Palmerstown. But we must not

Adam and Paul TFR_Irish CInema.indd 9

forget films like The Magdalene Sisters, or Song for a Raggy Boy, which uncovered hidden sides of Irishness and revolutionised Irish cinema. The popularity of stereotypes must not take away films such as Breakfast on Pluto that deal with painful topics such as the conlicts of nationalism and sexuality.

We must keep in mind these “other” Irish voices in order to sustain a viable Irish cinema, and prevent a cinematic localisation of an expanding human geography.

Ines Novacic

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BREAKING THE MOULD Award-winning filmmaker and Trinity graduate Daire McNab talks to Ciara Barrett about a film that’s not about a book, the state of “Irish Cinema”, and how About Adam is not, actually, a film.

Daire McNab (centre) with crew members David Boyle and Tom Rowley on The Gingerbread Men set.

The last time TFR met with Daire McNab back in 2008, the Film Studies ’07 alumnus had just finished shooting his debut film, The Farm.

Described by McNab as a “fucked-up take on the romance genre”, The Farm won the director Best Young Filmmaker prize at the International Film Festival Ireland, and was shown to critical acclaim at the Abertoir Film Festival in Wales. It has since been picked up in a DVD distribution deal with Brain Damage Films in the USA. McNab is now in postproduction with his second feature film, The Gingerbread Men. And this time, he is hoping for a major cinema release for the “dark romantic comedy musical”, scheduled to premiere in early 2011.

In a small country with an even smaller film industry, fate can be cruel for young indie filmmakers, such as McNab. Funding is scarce, but the want for an ‘Irish Cinema’ with a means to market itself internationally is acutely felt. Recently, McNab talked to me about how The Gingerbread Men fits into this framework – or fails to.

Simply put, The Gingerbread Men is the tale of two male Trinity students, one trying successfully, the other heartbreakingly unsuc-cessfully, to score girls out and about in Dublin.

I had to ask whether the film is in any

way an adaptation of J. P. Donleavy’s famous 1995 novel, The Ginger Man, based similarly on the debauched lives of Trinity College students.

“The Gingerbread Men is more an “homage”, or a “21st century equivalent of Donleavy’s book,” McNab explained.

“He wrote about people he’d encountered while attending Trinity in the ‘50s, and I wrote about my own experiences. The genesis of the film came after reading the book, when I heard that a film version was in production starring Johnny Depp. The book is a fantastic document of a particular moment in Irish history, but I wasn’t convinced of the merits of recreating the period 50 years later in a Hollywoodized film. I did think that there was scope for a modern equivalent, so I spent the next few years making notes about my own life in college, and began writing the script literally the day after I finished my last exam in Trinity.”

Despite its Irish-specific subject matter, as well as a good script and a concept that would appeal to a young Irish demographic, the Irish Film Board turned down funding for the film.

As with The Farm, McNab’s second film is thus largely self-financed on a small budget of approximately €10,000.

In conversation with the director, I

Kenn char

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wondered why The Gingerbread Men might under thirty, and almost no Irish equivalents we make. I’m suspicious of films which not have been seen by the Film Board to exist. Unless you count About Adam as a attempt to foreground an interrogation of comply with commonly accepted notions of film, which I don’t. cultural identity (which leaves me in the “Irishness” on film. After all, it’s their job “[…]In some ways, the concept of unfortunate position of being suspicious to promote the development of Irish culture national cinema is an extension of the genre of The Gingerbread Men). Someone like through film. concept, an attempt to shoe-horn disparate Lenny Abrahamson can do this very well But The Gingerbread Men resists strict films into one group so people can make by stripping down his films to minimalistic categorization, and McNab has particularly sense of them better. character studies. Seeing two junkies expressed distaste for the practice of “[…]For whatever reason, the majority of shuffling around Dublin looking for a fix is labeling, and subsequently as relevant to Ireland and our We have an unhealthy obsession with national identity, cultural identity as something selling, a film as generically “Irish”: like In The Name of the Father.”

“It’s something I’ve always Perhaps then The which spills over into the films we make. turned my nose up at. Yet Gingerbread Men, being The Gingerbread Men is relatively a-historical, is too fairly explicitly dealing with the notion Irish films currently being produced tend ‘young’ of a film, too unassuming without of nationality. One of the protagonists is to be either crime-based capers or films being simplistic, to fit into any strict English-born and has an Irish accent, and about depressed middle-aged men. There’s definition of “Irish Cinema”. But isn’t that the other is Irish-born but has an English nothing wrong with doing either of those, just what Irish Cinema needs? accent. but over the last few years either the quality ...“Also,” notes McNab, “The film has four “Most Irish films tend to focus on rugged has been lacking, or audiences haven’t sex scenes, which is certainly trailblazing. country folk or bumbling criminals. The responded to the few good films that have I can’t think of another Irish film with that people in The Gingerbread Men are virtually been made. many. Unless you count About Adam as a all middle-class college students in their “As a fairly new nation, we have an film, which I don’t.” mid-twenties. It’s always surprised me that unhealthy obsession with national So there. most Hollywood films have protagonists identity, which spills over into the films Ciara Barrett

“

”

Kenneth Conway as “Ken”, the less lucky-in-love of the two main characters, in a scene from the film TFR_Irish CInema.indd 11

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An Irish Cinema Manifesto

by Cathal Wogan

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T

HOU NOT

SHALT

T

HOU NOT

SHALT

T

HOU NOT

SHALT

sacrifice art make tourist adapt Roddy and ideals in the procporn, basting Ireland Doyle, let him write ess of gaining opporin saccharine sentiscripts or try to write tunity to create, or by “paying mentality. a Roddy Doyle script. one’s dues.”

Postcard films are not cinema.

Art is created by artists.

True art is achieved by the human person, not capital nor any other factor of production. Vision should never be sacrificed. Working one’s way up the industry hierarchy must not compromise the goal, to create from an artistic place.

Cinema is born despite existing industry structures. Neither should the aspiring artist compromise their vision in the face of the Irish Film Board or any other seemingly artless, corrupt, short-sighted, bourgeoisie serving funding group. Only within the individual, within the artist, lie the seeds of Revolution. Revolution is key.

T

HOU NOT

SHALT

indulge in or be seduced by generic, spectacle filmmaking.

Cinema is not merely a commodity.

In opposition to Movies, Cinema is not primarily for consumption. Movies and Cinema are different entities. Movies are, to a certain degree, homogenous products. They explode in florets of generic excrement, stock characters and plot devices, before reassembling neatly to give benign narrative fulfillment. Strive to make Cinema, the significant other.

Cinema in never primarily a product for sale, nor is it a commercial enterprise.

Rather, Cinema is an artistic creation that always does something different, challenging the passive spectator in some way, a dynamic piece of work.

As common as it is to see green Irish landscapes pictured for the sake of their own beauty, Irish men and women drawn as endearing stereotypes who grow out of the earth, wealthy people hung as inherently evil and/or protestant, nationalism championed as a beautiful nobility and poverty painted as pure romance, such depictions are fundamentally conservative. The Quiet Man and The Wind that Shakes the Barley are pretty but ultimately regressive postcards. They do not represent any Ireland that we know or have ever known.

T

HOU SHALT NOT glorify nationalism nor republican violence.

Borne of wood and grass, these brave men fight for freedom from their British oppressors.

To propagate blind, violent action in any direction, against any party, is, particularly at this juncture of Irish progression, highly irresponsible. Every individual deserves consideration in their own right. Failure to advance from this shtick would not just be intellectual stagnation, but bigoted regression, for to stay still in the midst of propulsion is to move backwards. Broad stereotypes of the evil British gentry do not deserve the hatred of a nation that is now more concerned with negative equity, Starbucks and Lady Gaga than the whereabouts of its borders.

Images on facing page, a compendium of “Thou Shalt Nots”, clockwise from top left: Zonad, The Quiet Man, Ryan’s Daughter, When Brendan Met Trudy, The Commitments and The Wind That Shakes the Barley 13 TFR_Irish CInema.indd 13

Brendan, a timid school teacher, met and fell in love with Trudy, a mysterious free spirit.

“I really love those funny Irishy films, the ones that are really Irishy. Do you like The Commitments? That was so good. It is exactly what Irish people are like. Full of drink and passion, almost tripping over their own wit and working class charm.

And When Brendan Met Trudy? What an unlikely couple! Scoff scoff scoff.” Roddy Doyle is a gifted writer and has penned wonderful words over the years. However, since The Commitments, the genre of working-class-Irish-film has been dying under the weight of what is expected.

T

HOU SHALT CREATE CINEMA: THE ARTIST’S CREED.

We believe in Power Cinema, an Art across all of earth.

We believe in the Artist, with the power to create.

The Artist is possessed by the power of Genius.

The Artist is responsible for immaculate artistic conception.

The Artist descends into the depths of his soul, and finds something.

The Artist ascends to a plane of artistic consciousness, being the Auteur, creating.

The Artist alone can achieve ecstatic truth from the amalgamation of genius and effort.

We believe that the Art of Cinema can and should penetrate the collective.

We believe that the Art of Cinema can and should challenge, always progressing.

We believe that the Art of Cinema can be revolutionary and can change the world.

We believe that the seeds of revolution lie within the artist.

We believe that the artist lies within the collective.

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Reviews Enter the Void

Gaspar Noé, 2010

Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void is being screened in Ireland in the form of its theatrical cut, about 24 minutes shorter than the festival cut which screened at JDIFF earlier this year. Still, clocking in at an impressive 161 minutes, it takes a sizeable chunk out of anyone’s day. The film, ahowever, will leave an indelible mark on your mind for the rest of your life.

In its opening moments, the film’s main character, Oscar, inhales DMT, an exceptionally powerful hallucinogenic, prompting a visualisation of a trip which is unlike anything I have ever seen before in the cinema. Aesthetically, it is in a world of its own. Based loosely on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a meditation on the process of death and reincarnation, Noé invites us to experience the journey taken by a young man in Tokyo after his own demise. His life flashes before our eyes, with traumatic moments lingered over and repeated as the film unfolds, while the camera glides and swoops through the cityscape (both

real and imaginary) as his “soul”, tracing the movements of his loved ones in the wake of his departure. Using the book as a basic structuring device, Noé builds a powerful farrago of images and events into a haunting and disturbing examination of the conscious mind and the importance of a single life.

I do not wish to seem excessive in my praise, however, the film is a work of sheer genius. Noé recreates the point-of-view shot as a disembodied, autonomous pneuma, the moving-image as a process which is conscious but separate from physical reality. In doing so, he challenges the formal artifice of the image and its attendant morality by associating with it the suspended consciousness of the already-dead Oscar. We are aware of the moral potential of each shot, of the internal psychological processes which motivate it, but to which voice ultimately cannot be given. As a result, said potential cannot be realised within the diegesis, but seeks the sentient

and fluid morality of the living audience for contextualisation. At the same time, the reality to which we are subjected is ontologically suspect, given that its very essence is potentially constructed by or filtered through the active (sub)conscious which observes it. Truly, Noé has found a formula, perhaps by accident, for the airtight invocation of POV cinema.

It is useless to try to dissect or explain every aspect of Enter The Void to you, suffice to say that it harnesses the visceral power of cinema in a way that needs to be seen to be believed. I hate being mysterious or reticent in reviewing a film, but this really is something you must experience for yourself. It begs to be viewed on the big screen as well, so unless you live in a really big house with a really big TV, I suggest you get to the IFI while it’s still being screened. Cinematic history is being made, whether we’re aware of it now or not.

Oisín Murphy

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The Girl Who Played With Fire We all know it’s bad to set things on fire, and as children we are taught that it’s wrong to play with fire. Fire is bad. So is the development of this film’s plot.

There’s been such hype over Stieg Larsson’s trilogy that I’m quite surprised at the lack of it surrounding this film; and the same goes with the first installment The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I’ve read that the second book is seen as the weakest link, and I’m afraid director Daniel Alfredson translated that onto the big screen. Moving away from the case of a missing girl and Nazi serial killer, The Girl Who Played With Fire sees ubercouple journalist Mikael Blomkvist and hacker Lisbeth Salander stumble into a messy web of sex trafficking and murder.

At the beginning of the film, the narrative seems to take up where the last film left off.

Lisbeth is enjoying the lifestyle she

fraudulently purchased, and Blomkvist is as eager as ever to bring the baddies down.

Even Nils Bjurman is poking around in the opening sequence, showing off his “I am a sadist pig and a rapist” tattoo. It all goes haywire when our bad ass, bisexual heroine is forced into fugitive status after being accused of triple murder. Naturally, Blomkvist decides to clear her name and sets out on the trail of mysterious evil mastermind “Zala”, who seems to be the cause of all trouble.

I must confess, the Swedish+subtitles did nothing to help me recognise the multitude of new characters thrown in with the old ones we were supposed to recognise from the previous plot. But there is no chance this film would’ve made it into the IFI without the Swedish: it would’ve just been Bourne with a tattooed lesbian-y protagonist.

At the end of the film, the narrative

Daniel Alfredson (2009) exposes the most dysfunctional family I’ve ever seen on-screen. Remember the recurrent imagery of Lisbeth as a child setting some man in a car on fire? Yeah, that was her dad. Star Wars came to mind when Blomkvist finally discovered, that “Zala”, short for Alexander Zalachenko, is really Lisbeth’s flesh-and-blood. It gets better. Not only is Lisbeth’s father a top Soviet spy behind all kinds of sex-trafficking evil, his blonde, giant ubermensch sidekick turns out to be her half-brother. “The product of a brief love affair in Germany,” as papa Zalachenko reveals. Naturally, the baddies just have to be Soviet and quasi-Nazi. My favourite bit was when we find out about the halfbrother’s “rare genetic condition”: the man doesn’t feel pain.

And I thought Sophie’s Choice was a hefty family-drama…

Ines Novacic

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The Town

Ben Affleck (2010)

It’s another grey day in Boston. There’s cops, robbers, and a bad Irish-American boy trying to go good for an unsuspecting girl. It’s all a little too familiar.

Although The Town is an engaging and entertaining film, it really isn’t telling a new story, or even putting a new twist on an old one.

For a cops and robbers film, it doesn’t fail on a generic level; the scenes are essentially well crafted and voice-overs are used in an original way.

The Town seems to pay stylistic homage to “The Wire”, with low lighting and the use of close-ups that bring out the lines on an older and improved Ben Affleck.

The film boasts a strong cast with great performances from Jon Hamm, Jeremy

Renner and Pete Postlethwaite, though perhaps their talent surpasses the script, almost working against it to expose its weaknesses. Dialogue is oftentimes clunky; I am reminded of Ben’s screenplay for Good Will Hunting...and not in a good way.

film, deserves a brief mention; since I know everyone’s wandering how she stumbled into all this. Her character appears to be a clone of Adriana Le Cerva from ‘The Sopranos’, but she plays the role well. It’s rather a nice contrast to her polished look from “Gossip Girl.”

The Town is a film I could be talked into watching again, but only if you give it to me on DVD.

“Mr. Affleck’s writing will need to catch up to his serious, new face in the future” There are plenty of gun fights and explosions, and a few great twists in the plot, but they fail to take away from the predictability of the love story.

All in all, Mr Affleck’s writing will need to catch up to his serious, new face in the future.

And Blake Lively, the wildcard in the

Simone Cameron-Coen For more reviews of what’s on now in Dublin cinemas: trinityfilmreview.com

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What’s the story, Rory?

Ines Novacic talks Trinity and Irish film with actor Rory Keenan

You may have seen him this year as Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest at the Gaiety Theatre. Or as Guy in nationwide cinema screenings of Zonad. Or heard him a few years back on Wuthering Heights for RTE radio. For someone so young, Rory Keenan has an impressive acting CV. A graduate of Trinity College’s Drama and Theatre Studies course, Rory has experienced much success since graduating college. His upcoming feature The Guard is reported to be the “next Intermission”, and sees Rory partnering up with top Irish actors such as Brendan Gleeson. Over the last three years, Rory has dedicated most of his impressive career to working on films. Past credits include One Hundred Mornings and Zonad, and his much-anticipated latest film, The Guard, is set for release at the end of 2010.

Baneham’s Academy Award, to the strong presence of home-grown films at Toronto 2010. Why do you think Irish films are receiving international recognition and what kind of films do you think are responsible for critical acclaim?

I’d have to single out John Carney’s film Once, because it’s the perfect example of an Irish film that had a small budget and small-scale story but received widespread and international acclaim. Like I said, we’re moving away from overly “Irish” political narratives and going back to the basics of

possible by the Irish Film Board’s “Catalyst Project”. New filmmakers had been invited to a series of workshops with producers and industry representatives, and asked to showcase their talent. Three winners were selected and along with two features, Eamon and Redux, One Hundred Mornings was awarded a full budget. This is just one Bord na Scannan scheme I am familiar with; I know they also regularly run short film projects, which are great platforms for any aspiring film-maker or actor.

What role did the Irish Film Board play in the development of your career?

“a major success of Irish films: the pairing of misery and humour”

How would you describe Irish cinema: what makes a film really “Irish”?

At the moment, it’s getting harder and harder to define what Irish cinema means, and I think this is a positive development.

Set standards shouldn’t exist for any nation’s cinema. Irish cinema is still in a relatively embryonic phase, and our “classics” are made-up of Jim Sheridan films such as In the Name of the Father, and features like The Field. These older, more traditional films had sprawling narratives and were quite politicised. Most equally dealt with socially engaging topics; for example The Snapper or The Commitments.

We’re getting better at making low-budget films, at producing a drama with minimal resources that has maximum impact and provokes an effective response.

The Irish film industry has recently enjoyed much success, from Richard

creating good, universal stories. Anyone can relate to Glen Hansard’s character in Once; and without the complexities that go alongside a large budget and huge cast, a film’s story can properly be expressed and felt. His and Hers is also a good example of this, and it also points to the advancement of documentary film-making in Ireland, which I think further improves the overall quality of Irish cinema.

Films and filmmaking have changed since the Irish Film Board was established. As a young actor who studied at Trinity, and has made a name for himself since leaving college, do you think the progression of the film industry has provided support for emerging talent?

Two years ago I worked on a film called One Hundred Mornings that was made

I was interested in theatre more so than film during my college days, and I went into the film industry through a more conventional path: audition after audition after audition. Since I’ve graduated, the film industry itself has grown, and more money has been awarded to filmmakers. With more films being made, more auditions are available. I was just lucky to succeed in that cycle.

As an ex-Trinity student who is now one of Ireland’s most successful young actors, what advice can you give to those interested in a similar career path?

I completed the Drama and Theatre studies course, and it was great to get an academic background while constantly auditioning and acting during my time at Trinity. Since I graduated, the Trinity film department has grown and become more diverse, which is great. In my third and fourth year, I was basically able to choose film over theatre and this gave me a broad perspective of what films are, their key elements and the work involved in making a film. I think students should

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take advantage of how accessible amateur filmmaking has become. Anyone can pick up a camera, edit on their laptop and mess around with content. I consciously started moving away from theatre to film in the last three years, and I would advise anyone to just keep at it: audition, and perfect the principles of film-making with amateur projects.

What is your favourite Irish film?

God, I’m drawing a blank. For some reason Adam and Paul keeps popping up in my head. With our expanding film industry, it’s hard to pin on the spot. I want to say something more traditional or respectable, like from the ‘50s or ‘aa60s, but there wasn’t really that much made then. In any newer film like Adam and Paul, though, we can see a major success of Irish films: the pairing of misery and humour. It’s a great reflection on the way Irish people are: we love to be miserable!

Who do you most look up to in the Irish film industry?

Who should I try to charm here? I’m joking.

I recently worked with Brendan Gleeson on the upcoming film The Guard. He’s a great actor, and has a great knowledge of cinema and what it’s all about. He’s also involved in production and I believe he’s currently working behind the scenes on his first movie.

You just mentioned The Guard, which is rumoured to be the next “big” Irish film. Can you tell us about it and what it was like to work alongside both Brendan Gleeson and international talent such as Don Cheadle?

It was a great film to work on, and it has a great script written by John MacDonagh, whose brother Martin directed In Brughes.

The story revolves around an unlikely pairing of policemen: disgruntled badcop from Connemara, played by Brendan, and suave FBI agent from LA, played by Don Cheadle. The basic idea is enough to make for a promising film! It’s set in the wilds of Connemara, and anything set in Galway always ensures a great location and great fun. I play Brendan’s sidekick, a

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Dubliner sent to an outpost in the middle of nowhere, who isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the box. My character’s a bit slow on the uptake really, and follows Brendan during the film’s fast-paced and hilarious drug plot.

Do you think a marriage of Irish and American film industries in the future is in the cards, and would that be a positive move for Irish cinema?

If that’s what a story requires, then yes.

But I don’t think we need Hollywood to be commercially successful. Take Zonad, a film I worked on a while ago. Zonad incorporated elements from American B Movie sci-fis, and aspects of The Quiet Man: it’s a total mish-mash of genres. I think pairing is good if it works for a particular plot, and mixing things up is good. The bottom line should always be the story, though, and a marriage of two, or more cinema houses should be responsive to the nature of a film’s story.

We’re experiencing a growing appetite for foreign films in the Irish film industry, and maybe even in film industries on a global scale. Audiences increasingly n e e d something other than a spectacle onscreen.

I think we all hope Rory’s assessment of film audiences is correct. Rory is currently in the UK working on a show called “The Big Lad”, and the best of luck to him.

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