You wait years for a black and white film focusing on an area in Dublin and then two come along at once. They are actually very different films, but I am still going to lump them together here.
Directed by Luke McManus, North Circular is a documentary about the North Circular Road, a winding route that runs from Phoenix Park almost all the way to the Five Lamps junction on Amiens Street. The film expands its remit to look at Phoenix Park itself at one end and Sheriff Street on the other, with the latter basically a continuation of the road towards Dublin's docks. Interesting locations near but not on the road feature, with one notable scene taking place in the UN veterans' place at the end of my road; sadly neither Billy Edwards nor the Patriotic Chonker put in an unscheduled appearance. There are also some nice musical sequences in the Cobblestone pub. The tone is pretty heart of the rowl and there is an amusing bit near the beginning where former residents of the now demolished Devaney Gardens flats reminisce about the great community spirit of the place ("At Halloween the chisellers used to burn out cars on the green, it was great crack almighty" etc.). At the other end there are some great sequences with Gemma Dunleavy, local pop star in the making; I was particularly struck with the live sequence that showed her being accompanied by actual harps while doing her R&B/garage/grime influenced stuff.
If I had a criticism of North Circular, it is the extent of its heart of the rowl focus. The film acknowledges that many people live along or near the North Circular who have moved there from elsewhere: other parts of Dublin, other parts of Ireland, even other countries. Some of these people are shown on screen but we almost never hear their voices, which seemed to mark the long meandering street out as a domain where only the true inner city Dub can really feel at home: a local street for local people. But that does not stop the film being a fascinating journey through Dublin's north inner city.
Alan Gilsenan's Ghosts of Baggotonia is a good bit more impressionistic. It begins for some reason with footage of allied bomber planes from the Second World War but then moves on to its true focus, the area around Baggot Street. In the post-war period became a bohemian milieu in which various struggling writers eked out a living from flats and bedsits; some of them are still well known writers, in Ireland at least (I'm thinking in particular of Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh), others less so. The film also uses a collection of street photographs by Neville Johnson to evoke the era (though his photography ranges far beyond the Baggotonia enclave). And it is worth noting that some of the writers covered (e.g. Flann O'Brien) did not actually live near Baggot Street: Baggotonia was a state of mind rather than a place. The film presents an allusive portrait of the time, using archival footage, drone photography and voiceover to hint at an era that seems almost unimaginably ancient for all that it hovers at the edge of living memory. I recommend the film to anyone interested in that cohort of writers or in bohemian life generally.
images:
North Circular still (The Journal: "Lockdown took me on a journey to film life along Dublin's North Circular Road")
The Bigger Picture is a programming strand they have in the Irish Film Institute, in which they invite someone (usually someone involved in the film industry, broadly defined) to select a film to show and then to introduce a screening of it. Local filmmaker Luke McManus had his turn on the Bigger Picture wheel back in September. He picked Lone Star, John Sayles's 1996 film, in which Chris Cooper plays Sam Deeds, the sheriff of a border county in 1990s Texas. I had not seen it since its original release. but I eagerly took the opportunity to see it again in the cinema, as I remembered it very fondly and regard it as one of the very best films I have ever seen. And it is as good as I remembered.
The basic plot is a murder mystery (Sam's search for the killer of Charlie Wade, the psychopathic old sheriff who disappeared in the late 1950s but whose skeletal remains show up at the start of the film) but it manages to bring in all kinds of other themes, including forbidden love, race and immigration, how historical events are recorded, difficult family dynamics, and even the nature of evil. There's also a gothic tinge to this tale of dark secrets emerging from the past, for all that this is a film set in sunny Texas rather than darkest Transylvania.
Having subsequently seen a few of Sayles's films, including 2008's Honeydripper, I think that his thing is eliciting strong performances from ensemble casts, with this film being no exception to that. There are so many good performances in Lone Star that it feels like I am letting the side down by singling individuals out, but Chris Cooper's understated sheriff, Elizabeth Peña as Pilar, his old flame who was kept away from him by cruel circumstances and disapproving adults, and Kris Kristofferson (in terrifying form in flashback scenes as Wade) are particularly striking.
The other Big Picture film I saw recently was Disney's 1985 film Return to Oz. Directed by Walter Murch, this is based on two of L. Frank Baum's novels. It was introduced by director Aislinn Clarke, who talked about how back in days of yore Walt Disney had always wanted to make a film of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but MGM got the rights ahead of him. Eventually Disney acquired rights to some of the other Oz books but it was only after Walt died that his company made this film. And it tanked at the box office, which might explain why Murch never directed anything else (though he remained in demand as an editor and sound designer, winning awards for his work in these areas).
Clarke talked a bit about how the film is quite dark and a bit too edgy for a kiddy film audience (though let's face it, the more famous 1939 film has scenes that are absolutely terrifying to small people). And the beginning scenes are no fun, with a young Dorothy (played by Fairuza Balk, unlike Judy Garland an actual child when she played the role) being sent to some sinister quack psychiatrist by her guardians after she won't stop going on about her previous visit to the imaginary realm of Oz. Then of course she does find herself back in Oz, but everything has somehow gone to shit, with the Emerald City in ruins, its inhabitants mostly turned to stone, her old friends either missing or also turned to stone, and the streets patrolled by the sinister Wheelers. Fortunately she makes a series of new friends (a talking chicken, a wind-up mechanical man, Jack Pumpkinhead and eventually a flying sofa with a moose's head). It all comes good at the end but not without some moments of strange danger.
And it is pretty good, maybe even very good. I think Return to Oz suffers from not being as iconic as the 1939 film, but that's like saying it impresses less because it was less successful. It feels a bit like it is cut from the same cloth as Dark Crystal - a fantasy film for kids who can take something a bit on the scary side, with enough going on that it might actually have a stronger appeal to adults of a more discerning nature.
I am now thinking of what film I will pick when my turn arrives to choose one for the Bigger Picture.
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Alan Gilsenan's Ghosts of Baggotonia is a good bit more impressionistic. It begins for some reason with footage of allied bomber planes from the Second World War but then moves on to its true focus, the area around Baggot Street. In the post-war period became a bohemian milieu in which various struggling writers eked out a living from flats and bedsits; some of them are still well known writers, in Ireland at least (I'm thinking in particular of Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh), others less so. The film also uses a collection of street photographs by Neville Johnson to evoke the era (though his photography ranges far beyond the Baggotonia enclave). And it is worth noting that some of the writers covered (e.g. Flann O'Brien) did not actually live near Baggot Street: Baggotonia was a state of mind rather than a place. The film presents an allusive portrait of the time, using archival footage, drone photography and voiceover to hint at an era that seems almost unimaginably ancient for all that it hovers at the edge of living memory. I recommend the film to anyone interested in that cohort of writers or in bohemian life generally.
