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"Other people have a nationality, the Irish and the Jews have a psychosis." Brendan Behan
It has been a very long time since I've come upon a neophyte actor the likes of Eamonn Owens, who plays Francie Brady in this movie-with-a-subtext. Owens fits the role so perfectly that the character and the actor seem inseparable -- which may limit any future roles offered to the newcomer. Despite the darker side of Francie Brady that emerges during the story, Eamonn Owens captures all the boyhood mystery, games, hopes and dreams of young boys growing up in humble circumstances in the streets and schools of the 20th Century: the comradeship, the dependency upon close boyhood friends, the shared adventures, the clubhouse, the rituals, and the secrets. Cross your heart, turn around and spit on the ground, blood brothers, friends forever,etc.; they are all quite real. This is the in-born source, the genetic grounding, the outward manifestation of our human tribalism. You cannot get the factor of "tribal instincts" out of the human equation.
The actors and the characters in this movie are all Caucasian Europeans , just as one would expect Ireland's Irishmen and Irishwomen to be in 1962 -- at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is refreshing to see an all White cast, which not only reflects the reality of the subject, but it ignores the dictates of censorship and the limitations placed on free artistic expression by the misguided propagandists of political correctness, who have established a color-coded quota system.
Based on the novel by Patrick McCabe, this is the story of a young boy who loses his dysfunctional family members one by one, only to face losing his best friend, his boyhood dreams, his future, and his security. A prepubescent Francie Brady runs amuck on the streets of an Irish city after the death of his parents, who had apprenticed him to a pig-butcher. Francie comes to identify, Mrs. Nugent, the mother of a nerdy playmate, and Mrs. Nugent's "English ways," as the cause of all his troubles. This conclusion of Francie's is not at all surprising, since "English ways" have indeed been the affliction of the Irish people for hundreds of years, as they struggled to drive the meddling English armies of occupation out of Ireland.
There is not a single word of dialogue that speaks of the struggle against the English, or the efforts of the Irish Republican Army ("IRA") to create an Irish republic, but that message is in the movie. It is the subtext.
Stephen Rea -- who also acted in "Michael Collins" by the same director: Neil Jordan -- plays Francie Brady's father, and also plays Francie as an adult. Sinead O'Connor -- a legend in her own mind -- makes an appearance playing no less a personage than Mary, Mother-of-God. Certainly a case of an actress playing against type, and very probably the best joke in the film.
The director, Neil Jordan, has created an unusual comedic vehicle in which it seems the narrator has all the good lines; and with Sinead O'Connor playing the Mother of God, the Devil has all the good tunes. But Francie, or "the incredible Francie Brady" as he calls himself, doesn't do so badly at all. He is a witty little butcher boy, and he is quite good at his apprenticed trade.
The story of Francie Brady and his reactions to the English-influenced Mrs. Nugent is allegorical. Francie, himself, represents the Irish people, and his actions represent the people's struggle against the harsh overlordship of England and its empire, from which the Irish want to be free at any cost. The traumatic effects of the breakup of Francie's friendship with Joe, speak to the dislocation and separation Irish families caused by the years of war, as well as the separation of the northern counties from the Irish Nation. That is the under-story in this film: English oppression v. the Irish people's struggle for a place, a nation, a republic of their own.
When Francie practices his apprenticed trade upon the hated Mrs. Nugent, to free himself from her English meddling, the act is violent, bloody and thorough. It is easily read as the Irish people rising against 700 years of English tyranny.
There are several ways to look at this movie and the book upon which it is based. Any way you look at it, this movie is well acted and interesting. The amazing Francie Brady certainly is.
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CHEVALIER
LES COMPLEXITE DERANGEANTES DES RESSENTIMENTS D'UN ENFANT DESAXE ET PERTURBE
Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on March 31, 2011Daniel Radd
Format très étrange mais la seule édition avec des sous-titres en français
Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on March 9, 2016
