Tag Archives: Ireland

Reviews: The Green Sea

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The Green Sea,
Directed by Randal Plunkett,
Starring Katharine Isabelle, Hazel Doupe

Simone (Ginger Snaps and American Mary’s Katharine Isabelle) is an American artist, living a solitary life in a remote country house in Ireland. Formerly a famous musician, now turned writer, she’s far behind on following up her extremely successful debut novel, and goes through her days with minimal contact with the outside world, and copious amounts of alcohol. Her few forays into the nearest town are ordeals for her – she is stared at and to be honest is her own worst enemy, her awful behaviour and attitude alienating everyone she has to come in contact with.

It’s while driving back at night from the town, laden with more supplies (mostly booze), and having already been drinking, she runs into “the kid” – literally. Hazel Douge’s wide-eyed young innocent walks out in front of her on a lonely country road after dark. Panicking and unsure what to do, Simone brings her home, where fortunately she’s taken no more than some bruises and cuts in the accident. Simone plans to cut the young woman loose the next day, dropping her off at a bus stop, but when she’s still there hours later some part of her that still remembers decency decides she can’t leave here there, and she offers her the chance to stay with her for a little while, doing housework in return for a roof over her head and some spare cash.

So far, you may think so familiar – misanthropic loner meets younger person in need, reluctantly becomes involved in their life and slowly both come out of their shells. Well, although there may be an element of that here, The Green Sea really doesn’t follow that generic trope too closely, in fact quite often I wasn’t sure exactly where it was going (I mean this in the good way, it’s no fun when you spot the plot points telegraphed in advance and know where a narrative is going). Plunkett, who wrote as well as directed, makes this quite tough to watch – not, I hasten to add, because of poor filmic work, far from it, but rather because he and Isabelle are not afraid to present us with such a thoroughly unlikeable central character in Simone.

Even after taking in the girl, Simone remains awful – she screams and shouts for the smallest of offences, clearly doesn’t want any attempt at a relationship, even going so far as to grudgingly tell the girl her name but then comment she doesn’t want to know her’s, because that would be the possible start of a relationship. She’s so horrible, insensitive and self-centred that it is often quite uncomfortable watching her. And I think that is part of the point here – we see her as such an awful person, then start to get little glimpses of something that happened, something awful, that has pushed her this way. Slowly it becomes apparent Simone isn’t just nasty, she’s mentally ill, suffering from guilt, depression and trauma, and worse, she clearly feels she brought it on herself, that she deserves this – she’s not acting out and being rude to others just because she is nasty, it is more like she wants others to hate her and leave her alone, like she feels she deserves their hatred and scorn, and wants to encourage it.

It’s a brave move to have one of your two main characters in a small, intimate film be so thoroughly unlikeable for so much of the running time, but I think it pays off in the end, as you go from thinking what a wretched excuse for a person she is to starting to realise how badly damaged she is, and that changes how you view her and her slowly growing relationship with The Kid. Doupe creates a remarkable performance, not just for such a young actor, but also given her nameless character has so few lines – most of her exploration of the world around Simone is through expression and body language, not words and verbal interchange, and this conveys a sense of both innocence and otherworldliness to her. And perhaps, just perhaps, there is more to her than we see at first, perhaps she’s not just some teenage runaway, perhaps there is more, perhaps there is a reason these two very different people have been put together.

This is a very unusual film – as I said I really wasn’t sure quite where it was going, and Simone acts in such a loathsome manner so often it is actually hard to watch in places, until you start to realise why she is as she is. The film delves slowly into deep hurt and emotional dark waters, but there are hints in here too that even if we think we deserve to languish unloved in those depths, that the world may yet still offer us a route back to the surface.

The Green Sea is released on various platforms by Reel to Reel Films from July 5th

This review was originally penned for Live For Films.

A sad farewell

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Only a few weeks ago my Irish chum Stephen – who did his comics and movie work under the pen-name Garth Cremona – told me that a result from a hospital stay had come back. With the worst possible news – a terminal diagnosis. I am a writer, a wordsmith, I, all false modesty aside, can turn a phrase to most occasions when I want to. And so could Stephen. But I was without words at this news, and told him as much, and he replied that so was he.

I couldn’t let that lack of words stand in the way of talking to my friend though, and dropped him a line or two, but didn’t hear back. Given the circumstances I was not surprised. And then this week his other half Tina, who he had told me several times was the total light of his life, took over his Twitter feed to announce that Stephen was gone. It was only a few weeks from the diagnosis and my friend, so much younger than me, was already gone.I’m heartbroken at his sudden passing, and I hate to think how much worse that is for Tina and his family.

I’ve lived through sudden loss of a loved one, and it is horrendous, marks you down to the soul for life ever after. It all but broke me when dad and I lost mum so suddenly. To lose someone even younger like Stephen is just so bloody wrong, and my heart is heavy for his loss and even heavier for the sorrow and grief that Tina and his family must now bear.

Stephen, under his Garth Cremona pen-name volunteered his services as a film reviewer for me on the Forbidden Planet Blog, for no other reason than a desire to promote good works – especially loving the chance to promote Indy works. He was hugely active on the Irish comics scene as a creator and also a supporter of other Indy creators. All of this was done without ego, just for the love of it all, to highlight interesting artistic works. In between reviews we tweeted and emailed each other banter and chatter and bonded over it and other, more personal matters. With FP deleting the blog only a day after I was paid off I can’t even pay tribute to him on there.

I find it hard to believe that I will never again get to tease him over his love of even trashier horror films than even I liked. I’m not going to swap messages with him again, talk about the comics and films we loved or hated. There should have been years of that more to come and suddenly there isn’t. Gone to the great editing suite in the sky and far, far too damned soon. I’ve reached that period of life where losing people becomes sadly more frequent, but Stephen was much younger and should never have been gone early like this. I will miss you, my friend, and I will see you again one day for that great Director’s Cut, in wonderful wide screen.

And damn you cancer, damn you to hell for all the pain you have caused to so may of us, up yours, cancer, up yours with a diamond tipped chainsaw for all the sorrow you have caused.

And on a final, silly note, whenever Stephen sent me in a piece to edit for the FP blog, as I went to schedule it under his nom-de-guerre of Garth Cremona I would find myself singing “Garth Cremona” to the tune of “My Sharona”. I told him this once, and he was mightily amused by the idea.

Grabbers: top B Movie SF-Horror from Ireland

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Edinburgh Film Fest: Edinburgh Film Fest: Grabbers

Dir: Jon Wright

Another late evening science fiction-horror screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival and another absolute gem with this monster movie with a strong comedy undercurrent. A glowing fireball streaks across the night sky off the coast of Ireland, past a solitary nocturnal fishing boat. Mistaking the green glow for a distress flare they set off thinking someone needs helps, but it’s not another vessel they encounter…

Daybreak on a small island off the mainland and young career-girl policewoman Garda Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) is arriving on the ferry, taking what she thinks should be a wee change of pace for a couple of weeks duty, swapping the hustle-bustle of a city centre Dublin copshop to provide temporary cover on the rural island while one Garda officer is on his break. The remaining officer, Ciarán O’Shea (Richard Coyle) – a constant alcoholic – is less than happy to have anyone else drafted in to keep an eye on him, let alone an eager, fresh-faced female officer from the big city, but soon they will have more important issues to deal with. The trawler has been found adrift with no crew off the coast, then a local doctor walking his dog on the beach comes across the horrific sight of an entire pod of pilot whales washed up on the beach.

Such sad sights are not unknown to coastal communities, of course but when the local marine scientist Doctor Adam Smith (Being Human’s Russell Tovey) examines them he finds huge wounds and concludes they didn’t beach themselves but died at sea and were washed in by the tide. Quite why a whole pod would be killed at sea like this no-one can say. Meanwhile one of our local drunken fishermen finds some very odd creature caught in his lobster pot. Deciding it might be worth money he hides it in his bath before, this being Ireland, he heads to the pub, gets drunk and tells everyone he has a ‘sea monster’ in the bath. Of course, no-one believes him. Until people start to go missing and there’s a storm coming that will cut off the island from any outside help, even if those on the mainland believe what they tell them…

Okay, so far I imagine for anyone who loves their SF and horror we’re on fairly familiar ground here – small, isolated rural community, an outside menace arrives, stealthily at first, picking off one or two people in the dark before anyone can notice, only being properly revealed when it seems it may be too late to protect themselves. We even have the couple of outsiders who come into the close knit community in so many tales of this kind. The pure joy of Grabbers is that the folks who made it clearly know and love the genre; they take these familiar characters and situations then play them absolutely pitch-perfectly, with a good combination of horror and humour, with the latter deriving less from any puns but evolving naturally from the interaction of the characters.

Grabbers is also proud to wear its Irishness on its sleeve and not try to Americanise itself for the international cinema market. This is a classic monster movie like many an American B flick, sure, but one that could only work in Ireland – where else (excepting perhaps parts of Scotland, perhaps!) could part of the protection against devilish, blood drinking sea monsters involve a lock in inside the village pub and getting drunk? Where else would you get a shout of “aw, shut yer fecking hole!” as a hero wallops the giant monster? A great combination of B-movie SciFi roots, horror and character driven humour, great cast and a lot of heart (plus some nice homages to other genre greats, including a brilliant Aliens pastiche), Grabbers is simply perfect late night movie viewing – in fact I think this is the most enjoyable comedy-horror I have seen since the Nathan Fillion-starring Slither.

 

And if my opinion doesn’t convince you then consider the fact that the late night film festival audience gave the movie a huge round of applause – when a festival crowd does that, it’s the mark of a great film. This time last year I saw a wee horror movie called Troll Hunter at the film fest and told you it was one to watch for. Well, Grabbers is slated for general release later this summer in Ireland (hopefully UK soon thereafter) and I’m telling you that for me it’s this year’s Troll Hunter.

This was originally penned for the Forbidden Planet blog