• Song of Granite

    December 13, 2017 - By 

    A non-traditional perspective on a traditional Irish sean-nós singer, Song of Granite tells the story of Galway-born Joe Heaney through fragments and figments, snatches of song and poetry and time-jumping visions of Ireland and beyond. Pat Collins’ film is a carefully composed blend of dramatisation and documentary, light on biographical specifics but heavy on the sad, gentle rhythms of time and song. Cinematographer Richard Kendrick frames Joe’s childhood in the village of Carna, Connemara in glorious, pristine black and white, dramatisations of early 20th century rural Ireland rarely seen in cinema without the moral baggage of politics or poverty. There…

  • England is Mine

    August 17, 2017 - By 

    Present-day fans of The Smiths, embarrassed by Morrissey’s descent into unfashionableness, usually preface their admiration with the disclaimer that it’s ‘about the music, not the man’. England is Mine provides the reverse: the man, not the music. Mark Gill’s unlicensed biopic is a portrait of the artist as a moody young man, covering the early stages of Steven Patrick Morrissey’s artistic development, before he began building his first tracks with Johnny Marr (Laurie Kynaston). Basically, it’s a music biopic without the music; in a genre well known for coasting on familiar beats, this is, at least, something new. Played by…