That They May Face the Rising Sun

A beautiful portrait of the loneliness and isolation in countryside living, and finding the small joys in the monotony of the everyday. The random assortment of world-weary locals constantly dropping by Joe and Kate's home perfectly encapsulates the people for whom life has passed them by, and who come and go from the world leaving little trace.

It's also a tale of living with the hand you're dealt and the choices you make along the way. It's easy to envy the success of others when you don't have much to your name, or live in the past when times were better, but finding serenity in what you do have is the real key to life.

Sometimes all you have in the world is the people around you; sometimes they're all you need.

The pace is slow and many scenes come back to the same road but it is a seamless wonder portraying both genuine difficulties in life and a serenity of the seasons and lifestyle that melts together. I enjoyed the array of characters, each with a story and edge. It was somber but not depressing and the use of closeups and distant landscapes worked to keep a slow pace moving. The only negatives was the sound...maybe in the cinema it wasn't adjusted to the right volume but also the piano wasn't always appropriate. Also maybe the couple were just too perfect but that had an inspiring positive side too. It is a very good film and a quality few films reach.

There is a lot to praise in That They May Face The Rising Sun: stunning scenery, great acting, beautiful score, but the presence of a strong plot, theme, or central relationship, one of which at least, is required to hold a great film together, was lacking. The married couple around whose lives and cottage the main action revolved, seemed to coexist largely on a diet of meaningful glances and melancholy embraces. Joe's (Barry Ward) depiction as a stoic Good Samaritan-friend, embalmer, driver, letter-writer to all, starved the actor of any emotional range, and the the action of any dramatic surprise. His wife (Anna Bederke) had little to do but smile serenely at her new, semi-cloistered, adopted world, like a novice nun stuck with her vows. Clearly Pat Collins placed most of his chips on mood and atmosphere, which for me, often echoed that doomed rural isolation and missed opportunity which The Ballroom of Romance did so well. I liked some set pieces, particularly the the wedding, where the close up of Brendan Conroy's lonely face tore at the heart. The wake (strangely, for its time, without a priest in sight) and laying out of Johnny's corpse, showed the single death is also a communal one. I loved Sean McGinley's performance, especially in that devastating scene where his eyes and voice convey the deep shame he feels for having left Ireland, only to end up cleaning the 'English jacks' in Fords.

The film succeeds in what it sets out to do; capture life in the ordinary moments of ordinary, often frustrated individuals, present it in significant, often striking fragments rather serve it up as a coherent narrative whole, a kind of style that Fellini perfected in the incomparable Amarcord.

There's something very potent about the Celtic habit of understating things. A few choice words, a bit of sarcasm or invocation of nature or, occasionally, religion coupled with some perfectly judged facial expressions or shrugs! It can be used to really good comic effect and to illustrate entertainingly just how folks live their lives and deal with death. "Joe" (Barry Ward) and wife "Kate" (Anna Bederke) live in their rural home where he is trying to put together his latest book and she juggles her time between running a gallery in London and living the dream amidst a remarkably dry Ireland. The film essentially plonks us in their home for a few days as we watch a variety of local souls pop in for tea, whiskey and chat. What's quite striking about this community is the lack of the young. Everyone here is nearer the end than the beginning, and with the vacillating character of "Patrick" (Lalor Roddy), the returning from Britain "Johnny" (Sean McKinley), his brother "Jamesie" (Phillip Dolan) and the curmudgeon that is "Bill" (Brendan Conroy) making up the characterful sextuplet of regulars we are presented with a glimpse at a perfectly plausible day in the life sort of thing... The "Patrick" character is probably the most interesting, flawed and decent, angry yet caring; but the others all fit into this sympathetically filmed jigsaw puzzle of what goes around comes around nicely. Don't expect lots to actually happen, but do expect to smile quite a bit and think a little, too.

Having grown up in rural donegal, it was a great movie as it brought up so many memories. It felt very true to the time and place. They obviously put a lot of time and thought into certain scenes and how people would have interacting at the time. Its a slow movie but it hits a punch. It goes without saying that the long shots of the scenery are beautiful and it is done in a way that it ties into the story. I hope that people that are not familiar with the place don't think that the more eccentric characters are overplayed or exaggerated as these are characters that are very familiar to those that grow up in rural Ireland.