Debbie Ging

Film West

July 2000

 

Fintan Connolly is no stranger to Dublin’s underworld. It’s vast assortment of social problems, ranging from heroin addiction to homelessness, has been the focus of numerous documentaries he has made since the mid-1980’s. His deep rooted concern for the marginalised underclasses of Ireland’s capital has led him to explore issues such as unemployment and emigration (No Comment, 1988), the eviction of elderly tenants in the name of economic progress (Notice To Quit, 1992) and, most recently the plight of asylum seekers in contemporary Ireland (Out of Nowhere, 2000). In 1994, 50,000 Secret Journeys broke new ground by allowing Irish women to speak frankly and, significantly, straight-to-camera about their personal experiences of abortion. Sadly, the programme was deferred from its original slot, re-edited and screened later in the year as part of a series of programmes surrounding the abortion debate. Given this ability to tackle such unpopular themes head on, one would half-expect a feature project under Connolly’s direction to bear the stamp of social realism. But when last year, he decided to branch out into the world of fiction, he opted for something quite different.

 

Flick, Connolly and Bergin’s first feature, follows the wandering of Jack Flinter (David Murray), a cool – if confused – middle-class hash-dealer who gets out of his depth when he and his sidekick Des (David Wilmot) enter the ‘big time’ of drug dealing. Indeed, the film’s most refreshing take on the narcotics scene is its refusal to pigeonhole drugs as a working class issue.

 

Eschewing the Loachian take on gritty urban realism, which sets out not only to depict working class reality but also to explain the socio-political roots of the problem, Connolly refuses to tell us what to think. “I didn’t want to make any ethical or moral judgements about the character, merely capture a series of attitudes and ways of behaviour which are part of our everyday life and time.” In fact, the only real indicator as to how we should feel towards Jack is a moody jazz score, which evokes intermittent empathy for the protagonist, particularly as he roams the city streets alone. According to Connolly, “Music is important in creating the mood for a film. Myself and Niall Byrne, the composer, worked closely together on the score. Strings, piano, flute, trumpet and horns went with the dreamy nature of the pictures.” Reiterating the audience’s ambiguity toward identification with the protagonist, Bergin’s take on Jack is that “…basically he’s a tosser but we do feel sorry for him.” His life slowly starts to unravel at the seams when his girlfriend dumps him, Des’s heroin habit gets out of control and their involvement with some serious heavies starts looking dangerous. Enter Isabelle (Isabelle Mencke), who puts him back on track and saves him from self-destruction and the city, though how a painter and reformed dealer will survive in their chosen rural idyll is anybody’s guess.

 

Escape from the city to a pastoral heaven has been one of the leitmotifs of Irish cinema, but it comes as something of a surprise that a film that so lovingly paints its clubs and cityscapes. The urban exteriors are so beautifully lit and so strikingly cinematographic that they demand to be seen on the big screen. Connolly and Bergin attribute much of the ‘look’ to Owen McPolin’s minimal lighting, as well as to smoke machines and excellent quality stock. When asked about the choices of location, Connolly’s first response is pragmatic. “It’s where I know best,” but he gradually grows more ebullient. “The city is an additional character in the film. The streets, cityscapes, quays, the river, its bridges, alleyways, buildings, pubs, clubs, parks, canals. We shot at the end of the summer, which is a good time of the year here. There is something in the air. You get caught up in it. Jack moves through the city in a kind of dream state, a haze. We see everything through his eyes. His Dublin.” This is a radical departure from the drab facades which featured in Family and The Commitments, and marks an acknowledgement on the part of a new breed of contemporary Irish filmmakers that Dublin’s council-housing, tower block, urban-cowboy image has become as much a Bord Failte stereotype as John Hinde’s picture-postcard turf-cutters of the 1960s. Although Flick deals with aspects of Dublin’s criminal underworld, there is none of the chilling violence of the British gangster movie. Though dangerous and full of other messed up individuals, the urban centre is a place of diversity, chance and possibility. Indeed the opening and closing sequences are almost reminiscent of Mike Winterbottom’s Wonderland, in which the city of Lodon itself features as one of the film’s confused but endearing characters.

 

Loach it ain’t but Connolly and Bergin’s prolific career in documentary has obviously had an impact on their first feature. This is most striking in the naturalness of the actors, who regularly appear to be improvising, though Connolly insists they worked closely to the script. Somehow, his approach to documentary, in which he insists on allowing interviewees to speak their own stories and resists the temptation of interpreting their reality by imposing narrative voiceover, has crept into the psyche of the cast. “You come across a diversity of people and stories making documentaries. People are fascinating. This stands to you when it comes to creating characters and stories.” It is also likely that a sense of documentary realism informed the choice of real locations. According to Bergin, “You don’t have to re-create anything, it’s already there and it lends authenticity to the story. It keeps you moving when you’re shooting, which, in turn, keeps the energy level high. Real locations and real people can enhance the atmosphere of any story.”

 

Since they became involved in The Picture House in 1996, Connolly and Bergin have been working together on joint projects. Bergin, who now runs her own production company Fubar, raised the finance for Flick independently.  Their fresh, enthusiastic and distinctly untortured approach to filmmaking seems to herald a more direct, no-bullshit approach to ‘getting it made.’ Connolly believes that with the right attitude, the finance hurdle can be overcome. “I wrote the script with a view to doing the film quickly and economically. Fiona raised the money we needed to shoot and we put together a good young crew and cast, alongside some veterans. Everyone was in to the adventure and the sense of recklessness of it all.” Both cast and crew were happy to work on the basis of deferred payment and the Irish Film Board came in at the end to provide completion funding. Like a number of other young filmmakers in this country – Tom Hall, John Carney, Owen McPolin and Enda Hughes spring to mind – their work does not appear to suffer from budgetary constraints. On the contrary, tight finance not only brings out the best in terms of artistic resources; it also seems to encourage greater teamwork and overall involvement in the production. Flick is being distributed by Clarence Pictures, which has proved a significant support to Irish filmmakers.  Their new deal with Xtra-Vision, whereby it gets an exclusive window for several weeks on Clarence’s video titles, also means that producers can feel more confident about recouping investment from rental and video sales. Significantly, Bergin and Connolly – along with Clarence – are aware of the threat of extinction of the Arthouse category, and are keen to see Flick in the multiplexes. Connolly says “I hope it comes to be seen as by wude an audience as possible. That would be great. I think it will connect with a lot of people who go to the movies (urban 18-30 males and females). We’re all fucked up in some way, we’ve got problems to resolve. Jack lives in the same crazy city, the same fucked up country, as we all do.

 

A lot of filmmakers I know cound (un)happily spend hours crying into their pints about finance, funding bodies and the impossibility of the whole thing. That is not to say that their complaints are in any way ill founded. But Connolly and Bergin prefer to concentrate on the positive aspects of the experience – “The process of making film is very exciting. The whole alchemy is very infectious.” They are not in the least bit daunted bythe prospect of raising money for another feature and believe that scraping together independent finance and getting the film done is the best way to go. Of course, there is always the worry that the completion finance won’t happen and that the film will get shelved away in the movies-that-never-get-made morgue but there is a sense of self-belief about this couple – combined with right mix of optimism and practicality – that suggests they won’t be deterred from their goal. Though still working on documentaries for RTE, Connolly has written another two feature scripts and they are currently deciding on which one to run with. “Directing a film you wrote is the best fun you can have standing up.” Clearly, this pair are not going to take it lying down.