Film Review - Stella Days (2012)

During the recent Presidential elections in Ireland there was a slightly tongue in cheek campaign to get Martin Sheen to enter the race. This was specifically related to his portrayal of Jed Bartlet in The West Wing but there was also the fact that Martin Sheen seems intrinsically related to Ireland. He has studied and made films here. He is a man that we trust. There is even a small chance he would have got a decent amount of votes had he threw his hat in the ring. The point being one that most film fans already knew all too well: a film will invariably be better if he has a role in it. After watching Stella Days the temptation is to wonder just how bad the film would have been without him.

Sheen plays Father Barry, a priest in small town Ireland in the 1950s. He is an educated and forward thinking priest who has a desire to return to Rome. This hope is dashed by the vindictive and vain Bishop Hegarty (a fine Tom Hickey) who wants Father Barry to raise funds to build a new modernist church. Father Barry is a film buff and decides to set up a small cinema to raise money. He does this with help from the new local school teacher Tim (Trystan Grayville) who is himself attracted to a married woman (the husband is largely absent).

This is a story of the old versus the new. The opening scene has ESB workers putting up poles in the snow to bring electricity to the small town. This is a fascinating time, when you can see modern Ireland begin to light up but sadly it doesn’t really get explored. In its place comes Brendan McSweeney (Stephen Rea) a local businessman and soon to be politician who wants to keep the old ways intact and therefore becomes Father Barry’s nemesis. Thus the scene is set for a battle of wills for the soul of the town.

Stella Days wants to be an ambitious and the central themes are certainly interesting. It wants to delve deep into the history of Ireland and how it is shaped by the encroachment of technology be it with electricity, cinema or kitchen appliances, but it never really does this. Indeed some of the early scenes of women looking at kitchen appliances with suspicion almost seem to be lifted from an unseen Father Ted episode with Mrs. Doyle in the role of the bewildered housewife. The other real problem for the first hour or so is the muddled narrative and the clichéd storytelling. This prevents the film from getting at those ideas with any real affect which lessens the film’s impact. Add to this the fact that Stephen Rea is completely wasted in what is probably the least interesting role I have seen him in. His politician is just a cipher for the film to lay out its ‘keep the town traditional’ ideas and nothing else. This is a real pity as Rea is usually a terrific actor with better material than he has been given here. 

Things take a darker turn during the final act and the film finally comes to life. There are some genuinely emotional moments in the final third of the film that go some way to rescuing the film as a whole. Sheen is absolutely terrific here, adding a real sense of danger to the kindly priest role that perhaps would have been expected. He is a scholarly priest and there is the feeling that he looks down on the people of the town as uneducated fools. He is outwardly kind but it is his eyes that some of his real feelings are betrayed. If only the other characters in the film were as well developed. Thaddeus O’ Sullivan directs in a workmanlike fashion, giving Stella Days the feel of a TV drama rather than anything cinematic. For a film that is partly about cinema, this is disappointing. Overall Stella Days is an earnest film that never successfully captures the times that it is set. For that I would recommend a watching of Neil Jordan’s The Butcher Boy.

My top 10 Irish films of all time

The danger in compiling a list like this is that there is a possibility of leaving out a film that is glaringly obvious. The only way to be fair is to not call the list the 10 best Irish films ever made. There is something reductive about articles that definitive. Film preferences are a deeply personal thing, completely subjective and there really is no right answer to the best ever. This list below comprises of my favourite Irish films. But I must stress that it is my top 10 films that I have seen. There may well be a film just around the corner that will explode into my favourites list and bump one of these out. In fact I am sure of that. There are still a lot of Irish films I have still to see or re-visit in some instances.

The main reason for doing this is to stir up some feeling about our national cinema. If you forcefully disagree with my choices, let me know. I want the whys and wherefores. I even want the ‘you don’t know what you are talking about’ comment if someone can give me alternative titles and a reason for their inclusion. All film fans in Ireland have a huge part to play in how we view our own films and how much exposure they get. The more we see now the more we will see in the future. It is about economics and bums on seats. The more we debate our cinema and how much it means to us (or not and why not) the more predisposed we will be towards Irish films in general. This may be overly optimistic but why not be optimistic for a change. Anyway here are my favourites. They are from 10 to 1 but the order is somewhat arbitrary as it changes with my mood.

10. The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Ken Loach’s Palme D’Or winning film about the struggle for Irish independence is a film more about tone and emotion than it is about visual representations of violence. This isn’t sensational and it isn’t a thriller. It is a fraught and angry film that dares to make every bullet count. There are moral ramifications for the murders that take place here. Every death counts. Cillian Murphy’s character asks at one point ‘whether this Ireland of ours will be worth it?’. This gets to the heart of a very philosophical film. How much violence, if any, can be justified for a particular cause? It is an important question in an important film.

9.  What Richard Did

 Lenny Abrahamson makes his first appearance on this list with his latest film. Anchored by a career making performance by Jack Reynor as the titular Richard, Abrahamson explores in the most naturalistic way that difficult transition into adulthood for young teens in Dublin. With a terrific script by Malcolm Campbell and beautiful camerawork, this is a world expertly drawn without missing a beat. The pivotal moment is captured in a disturbingly beautiful way and its aftermath is dealt with sensitively and with great filmic skill. Abrahamson is surely about to make it big on the world stage. Let us hope he continues to focus on Ireland as well as there is not a filmmaker that comes close to capturing as it is warts and all.

8. The Crying Game

Neil Jordan’s Oscar winning film is one that can be mulled over for quite a bit of time. It starts off as one film and by the end becomes quite another. It is a tribute to Jordan’s really strong screenplay that it all gels together so well. It is a story about a kidnapped British soldier, which becomes a love story, which turns everything on its head. There is a big reveal in the middle which sums up the film for some people but the film is so much more than that. Jordan can be a frustratingly indifferent filmmaker but when he is on form he is a brilliant one. Between this and The Butcher Boy Jordan has secured his place as one of Ireland's great filmmakers.

7. Silence

Acclaimed documentarian Pat Collins’ Silence is a film that came from nowhere with practically no advertising and blew me away. Silence is the story of Eoghan, a sound recordist living in Berlin who accepts a job back home in Ireland to document the countryside away from manmade sounds. This a feature film with a beguiling documentary feel, full of haunting and beautiful images of landscapes. For all the beautiful images on show this is really about the feeling inside, an urge to reconnect with a land and a life left behind. As Eoghan moves further and further away from civilisation he moves closer to where he hails from. This is his journey home. And what a stunning and moving journey it is. Silence is not just one of the best Irish films in 2012 but one of the best films of 2012 period.

6. Adam and Paul

Lenny Abrahamson’s film is quite frankly an unexpected joy. It is a film that came out of nowhere to confound an audience ready to jump on another clichéd story about drug addicts. But Adam and Paul is so much more. There is humour in the darkest of places. There is even an element of hope that bursts through on occasion. But what is most impressive is how humanistic the film is. This is a very timely reminder that the drug addicts on our street who we look at in disgust and mistrust are people and victims. We should care more. It is a beautiful and heartfelt film, that most wonderful of things: a melancholic joy.

5. My Left Foot

Jim Sheridan’s beautiful biopic of Dublin writer Christy Brown is a joy to behold. With Oscar winning performances by Daniel Day Lewis and Brenda Fricker, Sheridan tells in turn a warm and caustic tale.  It is a compassionate film, celebrating a unique story without sentimentality but with plenty of warmth. A critical and commercial success, My Left Foot arguably brought the Irish film industry into the international arena for the first time. This is a deeply humane film which Sheridan has yet to better.

4. The Butcher Boy

Neil Jordan’s dark and profane adaptation of Pat Mc Cabe’s novel is a wonderful achievement. Told by unreliable and troubled teenager Francie Brady, this film is an explosion of anger, grief, isolation and pop culture. It is also a social critique of small town Ireland in the 1950s. There are some wonderful performances from actors such as Jordan regular Stephen Rea and a wonderful Fiona Shaw as Francie’s nemesis Mrs Nugent. Add Sinead O’ Connor as a spiky Virgin Mary and it pretty much sums up the tone of this film. 

3. The Dead
John Huston's final film is a mesmerising adpatation of James Joyce's story from his Dubliners collection. Starring Donal Mc Cann and Angelica Huston the film is set at a dinner at a beautiful Dublin home in 1904. It is a tale of death and its inevitability. Shot with a wonderful intimacy by Huston although never intrusive, the film is elegant and very moving. There is humour to be had (the wonderful Donal Donnelly as the n'er do well Freddie Malins) but it is the singing of a particular song that stirs up some old emotions that leads the film to its extraordinary ending. There is terrific acting by the entire cast with particular mention to the truly missed Donal Mc Cann as Gabriel. This is a film that demands to be seen as fitting tribute to a great filmmaker.

2. Hunger

This film is a tour de force of acting and directing from the start. Michael Fassbinder plays Bobby Sands on hunger strike in the 1980s. Director Steve Mc Queen uses this as a springboard to make a film about the appalling dehumanising of the human spirit in prison. There is an audacious unbroken 15 minute scene in the film that is mesmerising and Mc Queen does not shy away from showing the horrors of prison life. Fassbinder is spellbinding as Sands with great support from Liam Cunningham as the priest. Harsh, brutal and moving Hunger is a towering achievement in Irish film.

1. Garage

There are some films on the list that on the surface tackle more important issues and weightier themes. But for me, there are none that come near to achieving the devastating emotional impact of Garage. It is a deceptively simply story of a simple man, Josie (Pat Short, astonishing), who looks after a garage in a small town in Ireland and his friendship with a local boy who comes to work with him. But Josie is lonely, heartbreakingly so, and his efforts at making connections are fraught with tension and pity. To say more of the plot would ruin the effect of the film. Suffice to say Mark O’ Halloran and Lenny Abrahamson have fashioned a film of beautiful intensity, by turns funny and sad. It is a magnificent achievement and one that will stay with you for a long time afterwards.

There are some films that are just outside the top 10 that could get in on another day. The honourable mentions are: Pyjama Girls, I Went Down, Once, In The Name of the Father, The Commitments, The General, In Bruges.

Film Review - The Butcher Boy (1997)

‘When I was a young lad, 20 or 30 or 40 years ago, I lived in a small town, where they were all after me on account of what I done on Mrs. Nugent. If she hadn’t of poked her nose in between me and Joe everything would have been alright’.

This opening phrase used by the protagonist Francis ‘Francie’ Brady in a droll adult voice over by Stephen Rea, sets the scene for everything that follows. Francie Brady (played by the wonderful Eamonn Owens) is the small town terror in 1960s Ireland, a son of an alcoholic musician father (Stephen Rea) and a mentally unstable mother (Aisling O Sullivan). His hateful obsession is the haughty Misses Nugent (Fiona Shaw) and her son Philip whom he suspects will eventually steal his best friend Joe Purcell from him.

There has been an interesting development in advertising trailer for certain Irish films: disguising themselves as comedies. This may be the work of film studios nervous of their investment, trying to lure as big an audience as possible to see it. Films like The Butcher Boy, In Bruges and Adam and Paul all have elements of comedy but surely cannot be considered as such. There is tragedy hidden within the humour – arguably the classic Irish defensive mechanism - protected by having the ‘craic’. The aforementioned films are perfect examples of this. This is not to say that the films named are not good, rather to say they are not billed as advertised.

In the case of The Butcher Boy, Neil Jordan's wonderful film, the good may indeed be grim, but the good is very good indeed. It is a heady mixture of styles, pitch black comedy, a heartbreaking drama of small town Ireland and its hypocrisies and a desperately human analysis of mental illness, loneliness and the dangers of alienation.

Francie and Joe spend their days playing cowboys and indians and imagining a better life. Francie Brady begins to unravel after hearing Mrs. Nugent call his family pigs. The word pig becomes one of the central themes of the film, evidenced even in the opening quote, with Mrs. Nugent poking her nose into other peoples business. There is even a surreal scene imagined by Francie of the effect of an atomic bomb on the town, with everyone frozen in place and represented as pigs. An attack on the Nugent’s house gets Francie sent away to a care home run by a friendly priest Father Bubbles (Brendan Gleeson). There is an older priest (Milo O Shea) who starts dressing Francie up in bonnets and abusing him. Through the appearance of being a hard worker and not a trouble maker (“and, the Francie Brady "Not a Bad Bastard" award goes to . . . be God, I think it's Francie Brady”) he manages to convince Father Bubbles to send him home. Francie becomes more violent with the news that Joe and Philip have become friends and the largely darkly comic tone all but disappears as Francie attempts to gets his revenge on the town and Mrs. Nugent.

By turns tragic, funny, surreal and sad The Butcher Boy is no easy watch. Indeed Francie Brady is a commendably unsympathetic and at times an unlikeable lead character on the surface - bullying people in the town for his own amusement. But there are some tragic moments which show the torment and anger within him. He bicycles to the town where his parents had their honeymoon. He goes to the bed and breakfast that they stayed in hoping to imagine the great times they had, his mother laughing and father entertaining the other guest with his music. The look on his face is heartbreaking when he told by the landlady that his father was drunk all the time and ruined the honeymoon. Indeed I think the word heartbreaking sums up this movie best. The Butcher Boy is quite simply one of the best Irish films ever made and may well be Neil Jordan’s masterpiece.