Angela's Ashes (1999)
Directed by Alan Parker
An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice, and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.
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What critics compared Angela's Ashes to
Seresin's point of reference comes from his grim perspective on "Angela's Ashes."
Cuaron makes us view the familiar with fresh eyes as he and new-to-the-series cinematographer Michael Seresin (best known for work on Alan Parker films such as "Angela's Ashes") abandon the verging-on-Disneyland colorfulness of the first two movies for more muted tones and film grain you practically can scrape your hand on.
(The absence of that ether is what made the lucid Robert Carlyle so wrong as the daddy of all daddy failures, in Angela's Ashes [1999].)
With career highlights that include “Angela’s Ashes,” “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” the DP has yet to find traction from both the Academy and ASC (American Society of Cinematographers).
The shadow of the Angela’s Ashes misery genre has lurked over Irish historical drama for some time, yet if anything Sing Street tips its hat rather flippantly at its characters’ troubles.
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Energy and urgency are substituted for realism: despite the colossal dunes of refuse through which dogs and oxen plod morosely, and the extravagant nastiness of the Fagin-esque gang leader, poverty is used here to appeal to the heartstrings, in the style of Angela's Ashes, rather than as part of a sociological report in the Pixote/Los Olvidados mould.
Other than Robert Carlyle ("Angela's Ashes," "Trainspotting") who only occasionally and briefly shows up as a quite delusional but compelling character, the rest of the performers here might as well be palm trees or glistening sand.