The Secret of Roan Inish (1994)
Directed by John Sayles
Ten-year-old Fiona is sent to live with her grandparents in a small fishing village in Donegal, Ireland. She soon learns the local legend that an ancestor of hers married a Selkie – a seal who can turn into a human. Years earlier, her baby brother was washed out to sea and never seen again, so when Fiona spies a naked little boy on the abandoned Isle of Roan Inish, she is compelled to investigate.
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What critics say influenced The Secret of Roan Inish
Like Jim Sheridan's and Mike Newell's "Into the West,"…
Much like Into the West the result is exuberant and compelling.
Thus it recalls last year's tale of Irish Gypsies, "Into the West."
The Return of the Secaucus Seven had two separate New York runs, made appearances on several year-end lists, and became a cause célèbre for snobs "in the know" deriding Kasdan's The Big Chill as a Secaucus rip-off.
"The Secret of Roan Inish" is akin to Bill Forsyth's "Local Hero," though the Sayles film is not nearly so enigmatic.
That significant stumble aside, The Brother from Another Planet is brave and pure and an unlikely (though oddly appropriate) introduction to the first film of Sayles' middle period: Matewan.
Sayles is a wonderful storyteller, and many of his low-budget, independent films - "Return of the Secaucus Seven," "Matewan," "Passion Fish," "The Brother From Another Planet," "Eight Men Out" and "City of Hope" - are filled with humor and wit, universal themes and realistic plotting, and despite some occasional dark subjects, heart and hope.
John Sayles, a filmmaker best known for the issue-oriented realism of "Matewan" and "City of Hope," adapted this fey fable from Rosalie K. Fry's 1957 novella about a boy raised by seals.
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Sayles demonstrates his all-encompassing sociological concerns (which would find their most eloquent fruition in his early career in The Brother from Another Planet), and his uncanny ear for dialogue (though the first act feels a little over-written)--locating a rhythm for the piece by the end that is, if still a little sprung, at least beginning to take on the feel of that intelligent naturalism that would mark his later work.
Sayles is a wonderful storyteller, and many of his low-budget, independent films - "Return of the Secaucus Seven," "Matewan," "Passion Fish," "The Brother From Another Planet," "Eight Men Out" and "City of Hope" - are filled with humor and wit, universal themes and realistic plotting, and despite some occasional dark subjects, heart and hope.
It was written and directed (and edited!) by John Sayles who spends one half of his movie career writing screenplays for the likes of Alligator and Battle Beyond the Stars to make money to finance intensely personal indie gems such as this movie and the likes of The Secret of Roan Inish and Matewan.
Sayles is a wonderful storyteller, and many of his low-budget, independent films - "Return of the Secaucus Seven," "Matewan," "Passion Fish," "The Brother From Another Planet," "Eight Men Out" and "City of Hope" - are filled with humor and wit, universal themes and realistic plotting, and despite some occasional dark subjects, heart and hope.
Gorgeously photographed by Oscar-winner Haskell Wexler ("Bound for Glory," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," "Mate-wan") and perfectly acted by a terrific cast, "The Secret of Roan Inish" is filled with nuance and detail that tells us much about Ireland and its people, their roots and beliefs, and - of course - the great Irish tradition of oral story-telling.
The picture stumbles badly when Sayles segues into something of a Death Wish , tackling the problem of drugs in the inner city--the black and white approach that works so well in a gentle and incisive satirical fable tends toward the insulting in any attempts at a rough-hewn realism.
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Nashville for a fictional Jersey metropolis coloured by John Sayles' working-class and race concerns, City of Hope is a devilishly complicated picture structured around a restless camera and the smooth passage of dialogue from one storyline to the next.
Sayles is a wonderful storyteller, and many of his low-budget, independent films - "Return of the Secaucus Seven," "Matewan," "Passion Fish," "The Brother From Another Planet," "Eight Men Out" and "City of Hope" - are filled with humor and wit, universal themes and realistic plotting, and despite some occasional dark subjects, heart and hope.
John Sayles, a filmmaker best known for the issue-oriented realism of "Matewan" and "City of Hope," adapted this fey fable from Rosalie K. Fry's 1957 novella about a boy raised by seals.
Sayles is a wonderful storyteller, and many of his low-budget, independent films - "Return of the Secaucus Seven," "Matewan," "Passion Fish," "The Brother From Another Planet," "Eight Men Out" and "City of Hope" - are filled with humor and wit, universal themes and realistic plotting, and despite some occasional dark subjects, heart and hope.