My Irish film awards for 2013

Although it pains me to say it, it has not been a particularly vintage year for Irish film. There were none released that were particularly bad per se, more that there was precious little to get excited about. That being said, for the second year in a row 2 Irish films will make it into my top 20 films of the year (one in my top 5). So positivity is necessary here. The ones that were good were really good. Instead of doing a list, I am going to do what I did last year and give out arbitrary and imaginary awards to those who deserved them. It is more fun to come up with silly names quite frankly. So without further ado…

The make me laugh and cry award (aka best Irish film of 2013) - Good Vibrations

This is a film that blindsided me this year. It tells the story of Terri Hooley, record shop owner, music producer, dreamer and bad husband who brought punk to Belfast in the 1970s and 80s. This film is an absolute joy to behold, emotional without being cloying, harsh without being brutal. There are tears and laughs in equal measure but crucially they are earned with a terrific tone and a great screenplay. Richard Dormer is terrific in the main role. The scene when he hears a certain record for the first time is just beautiful to behold. This is an absolute triumph and it is easily the best Irish film of 2013.

The ‘What’s Up Doc?’ award – Broken Song

The best Irish documentary this year was the wonderful Broken Song directed by Claire Dix. It tells the story of a group of young lads who rap. They are predominantly from the Finglas/Ballymun area of Dublin. Git and Costello have a father/son relationship which they both seem to draw on for lyrical inspiration. They also try to mentor some of the younger kids of the area. The songs themselves are lyrically brilliant, the content reflecting lives lived and dreams that slipped away. Into this comes singer/songwriter Willa Lee, who has a voice most singers would kill for. But he is also a troublemaker and a little bit too lazy. Dix delves lightly into their pasts but without reducing the film to working class misery porn which can happen in films such as this. At its heart, Broken Song is a simple story well told. And it is all the better for it.

The ‘overnight sensation’ award - Paul Duane

If you do not know who he is now he will be more familiar to you in 2014. Duane has had a superb year with Barbaric Genius released on DVD, a superb documentary (Natan) on the way, and a TV show about to air on RTE and BBC 4 (Amber). If that is not enough Variety only went and named him on their highly prestigious 10 Directors to watch in 2014 list. He is an all round good egg and very entertaining on Twitter (@MrPaulDuane). Mark my words this time next year he could be announced as the director of Transformers 5. We can only hope he can resist the lure of Hollywood and keep making the quality Irish films he has been making.

The ‘this kid’s got something’ first film award - Gerard Barrett Pilgrim Hill

Pilgrim Hill was released to talk of an instant classic and of a serious talent to behold. The talk of a masterpiece doesn’t help either the filmmaker or Irish film in general. Pilgrim Hill is not a masterpiece but it is a good enough film to suggest the birth of a major Irish filmmaker. The story of Jimmy Walsh and his life on his farm is lean, beautifully shot and very confident. It has a feeling of authenticity rarely seen. You get the feeling that Barrett and lead actor Joe Mullins know this terrain very well. They have carved out a memorable and low key film with a great central character at the heart of it. I cannot wait for Barrett’s next film to come along.

The 1^st Annual ‘just release the f*cking film will ya’ award – Tin Can Man

This is an easy winner. It is Tin Can Man by Ivan Kavanagh. It will be the same winner every year until this film gets a cinema release. Seriously people you have no idea how good this film is. Hassle your local TD. It needs to be seen.

A couple of honourable mentions. Citadel by Ciaran Foy was a very interesting film that fell away into genre conventions a little too much. But there is more than enough to suggest that he will make something excellent in the future.

It has not been on general release yet but the excellent documentary Where I Am by Pamela Drynan is a terrific and humbling story of what happened to American writer Robert Drake. It did screen in the IFI over the summer so I do not know if is getting a general release. It has been an excellent year for Irish documentaries as evidenced by the above choices and I have still to see The Summit! I will do so soon.

So that is it for 2013. Keep your eyes peeled on the blog for an article on Irish cinema in 2014 which I will publish over the next couple of weeks.  

Film Review - Good Vibrations (2013)

It rarely happens but sometimes there is an Irish film that you see in the cinema which you are sure is going to make a lot of money. Surely everyone will want to see it. Last year I had the pleasure of watching Grabbers and I remember coming out of the cinema thinking that it could hit the jackpot at the box office. It was just so damned enjoyable, kind of like those American films we see in our droves, but good. Alas that didn’t really happen and sadly as is the case with a lot of Irish films. The ‘Irish’ factor seemed to have kept the crowds away. I happened to catch the last screening of Good Vibrations in Dublin before it finished its run and boy did I have that feeling again. I hope that it did well at the cinema but from what I have read it may not have. One can only hope that for both these films, a long and healthy shelf life awaits.

Good Vibrations tells the story of Terri Hooley (Richard Dormer, truly superb), a record store and label owner in Belfast during The Troubles in the 60s and 70s. We first see him as a child in a beautiful and dreamy sequence at the beginning of the film. Running around his garden he seems entranced by the world he is in. This opening scene gives the film a somewhat sunny disposition but there is always darkness lurking. An accident occurs at the end of this sequence lest we get too happy. We next meet Terri as a peace loving young man listening to reggae with his friends. But The Troubles begin and Terri’s friends pick sides along religious lines and begin to arm themselves. They despise Terri for sticking with his peace loving ethos and not getting involved. It is at this point that he has the seemingly insane idea to open a record store on Great Victoria Street, a location that has been constantly bombed. The shop attracts strays from the burgeoning new punk scene of which Terri is blissfully unaware.

Hooley is precisely the character that if he didn’t exist in real life you would have to make him up. Unashamedly optimistic, self centred and passionate, he is the dream character to centre a film around. The fact that he really exists seems like an especially wonderful bonus. Good Vibrations is very much his story but it is also a lot more. It chronicles a time when some people genuinely thought that music could change the world. Crucially it lets you see how and why people could think this way. The birth of Hooley’s passion for all things punk is captured wonderfully as he goes to one of the live shows in a local pub. This is his epiphany. In an incredible slow motion scene the camera stays on his face as he dances like a mad man. All of Dormer’s acting range is shown across Hooley’s wonderful face. There seems to be an inner war between laughter and tears here with pure emotional joy being the resultant stalemate. Crucially you feel him feeling. This gets to the heart of why the film works so well.

There are a couple of other scenes that are just as good but should be enjoyed without me ruining them. Suffice to say that they are centred on that most wonderful of feelings: when you hear a song for the first time and know that it can change everything - including you. Good Vibrations nails something that few films about music get: namely the absolute joy one can get from the first beats of a song. It is the electricity that comes with hearing something special for the first time. But this is not a film that is all sweetness and light. Good Vibrations doesn’t shy away from showing the darkness that surrounded Northern Ireland at that time. To its credit Terri Hooley is not painted as a saint either. At times he comes across as very selfish and a bit lazy. It also shows the effects of his continuous drinking and use of drugs, without too much judgement but starkly presented nonetheless.

Good Vibrations is a glorious film. It soars with a fierce joy in a dark world. Good Vibrations achieves that rarest of balance: being full of charm but devoid of sentimentality. There are some ‘fist in the air’ emotional triumphs here but they are earned by a smart script and a wonderful style. I will be very surprised if this isn’t in my top 10 of 2013 at the end of the year.