Sight&Sound - 04.2020

REVIEWS

April 2019 | Sight&Sound | 63

Reviewed by Michael Hayden
This debut feature from writer-director Tom
Sullivan is the product of a funding initiative set
up by the national development agency Screen
Ireland, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and
broadcaster TG4 to ensure that work continues
to be produced in the Irish language. It is rare
for a film in Irish to secure distribution, which
suggests that this spare and serviceable thriller,
while modest in means and ambition, has the
potential to travel beyond national festivals.
The title, Arracht, is translated as ‘monster’ in
the subtitles. This could refer to the Great Famine
devastating Ireland during the period in which
the film is set, though it more obviously refers to
the way that audiences are expected to view the
brutal character of Patsy, played with moustache-
twirling relish by Dara Devaney. It’s suggested
that Patsy has deserted from the British navy –
because “there’s only so much shit you can take
from an Englishman” – and has witnessed the
horrors of the potato blight before arriving at the
door of Connemara fisherman Colmán Sharkey.
Sullivan chooses to show little of Patsy’s
subsequent murder spree, around which the
drama revolves, though it is asserted that he
relishes his kills. He goes AWOL from the
screen for a long period after committing

Reviewed by Leigh Singer

There’s a strong case that sports enthusiasts going

into this award-winning documentary with

zero investment in Australian Rules Football

(or ‘Aussie Rules’, for short) might connect

with it the most. Without prior knowledge of

Indigenous AFL icon and one-time Australian

of the Year Adam Goodes’s efforts to combat

racism both within his game and in the wider

national psyche, unmentioned parallels to

other sports and countries – the ongoing Colin

Kaepernick/gridiron standoff, Fifa’s various, often

lacklustre efforts to tackle football’s inequities

• arguably come more keenly into focus.
  Similarly, general audiences unfamiliar with
  Australia’s longstanding, wretched treatment
  of its Aboriginal people receive a crash course
  in engagement and enragement: from Captain
  Cook’s infamous “terra nullius” – nobody’s land


• colonial decree, which erased 60,000 years of
  human occupation at a stroke, to the horrors of
  the Stolen Generations’ separated Indigenous
  children. Director Daniel Gordon (a Bafta-winner
  for Hillsborough) deftly weaves such key historical
  markers together with illustrative archive
  footage of Goodes’s touching journey from shy,
  unaware kid to outspoken advocate. The film also
  features testimonies from other racially abused
  Indigenous former AFL pros. The 1993 photo of
  Nicky Winmar lifting his shirt mid-match and
  pointing to his dark skin is, in Australian terms,
  as iconic an image as John Carlos and Tommie
  Smith’s 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.
  As an ideal educational primer, a call to arms
  even, The Australian Dream kicks every goal.
  Filtering the film chiefly through Goodes
  and its writer, acclaimed journalist Stan
  Grant, both from mixed Indigenous

his crimes, and the film drifts in his absence.

Dónall O Héalaí’s portrayal of Colmán has an

admirable physicality, especially in the scenes

where he is hiding in a cave, surviving on his

measly fishing catch. However, the character’s

nobility and stoicism are overstated to the

extent that he becomes too good to be true,

so impeccably righteous that he won’t even

take a drink of the poitín he brews for others.

Along the picturesque rolling coastline,

another monster surfaces. Patsy repeatedly

tells Colmán, “I am not your enemy,” and it is

clear who is considered worse. The immovable

English landlord (Michael McElhatton)

and meathead soldiers represent the real

evil of British oppression. Describing how

things became so bad, Colmán declares: “It

didn’t happen to us. It was done to us.”

While that might be a legitimate reading of

history, the sense of victimhood jars, seeming

trite and hackneyed. Lance Daly’s bilingual

Black ’47 (2018) was a huge success in Ireland,

breaking box-office records. Like Arracht, it was

set in Connemara during the Great Famine and

explored strikingly similar themes of violence,

isolation, masculinity and nationhood, emerging

as a daring revenge fantasy. Without similar

wit or ideas, Arracht pales in comparison.

Arracht
Ireland 2019
Director: Tom Sullivan

The Australian Dream

United Kingdom/Australia 2019

Director: Daniel Gordon

Certificate 15 109m 34s

Connemara, Ireland, the 1840s. Colmán Sharkey

is a fisherman with a wife and young son. At the

request of a local priest, he offers work and lodgings

to hot-headed stranger Patsy. With crops failing,

and following a confrontation with his landlord’s

representatives, Colmán visits the landlord with his

brother Seán and Patsy to request that rates are not

increased. The meeting descends into violence when

Patsy murders three attendants, then the landlord. In

a scuffle, Seán is killed and Colmán attacks Patsy.

Two years later, Colmán is living alone in a cave,

haunted by the voices of his now dead wife and son.

He bonds with Kitty, a young girl who witnessed the

murders at the landlord’s house. Patsy reappears,

accompanied by British soldiers convinced that Colmán

killed the landlord. As the soldiers restrain Colmán, Patsy

threatens to kill Kitty. Colmán overcomes the soldiers

before saving Kitty and strangling Patsy to death.

Producer

Cúán Mac Conghail

Written by

Tom Sullivan

Director of

Photography

Kate McCullough

Editor

Mary Crumlish

Production Designer

Padraig O’Neill

Music

Kíla

Sound Mixer

Alan Scully

Costume Designer

Clodagh Deegan

©Macalla

Production

Companies

Fís Éireann/

Screen Ireland

Supported by

BAI – Broadcasting

Authority of Ireland/

Údarás Craolacháin

na hÉireann

Cine 4 – TG4

Films in Irish

A Macalla film

Executive Producers

John McDonnell

Brendan McCarthy

for TG4:

Deirbhile Ní

Churraighín

for Fís Éireann:

James Hickey

Cast

Dónall Ó Héalaí

Colmán Searcaigh,

‘Sharkey’

Michael McElhatton

Lieutenant Davies

Saise Ní Chuinn

Kitty

Dara Devaney

Patsy Kelly

Peter Coonan

Corporal Bailey

Eoin Ó Dubhghaill

Seán

Seán T. Ó Meallaigh

Seámas Tom Thaidhg

Conall Ó Céidigh

Dan

Elaine O’Dwyer

Maggie

Siobhán O’Kelly

Áine

Elise Brennan

Kate

Páraic Breathnach

Father Joachin

Cillian Ó Gairbhí

Pat Madden

In Colour

[2.35:1]

Subtitles

Distributor

Break Thru Films

English subtitles title

Monster

Blight club: Dónall Ó Héalaí, Peter Coonan

Credits and Synopsis

Out of bounds: Adam Goodes