“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Movies And Shakers

Irish movies are, for the most part, a load of pants. There are good reasons for this, not least of which is the all-important issue of finance, or lack thereof, but as often as not hamstrung from the off by scripts that are – there’s no gentle way of putting it – not good. In the past couple of weeks alone I’ve seen Situations Vacant and Happy Ever Afters, both of which appear to have been written by people who haven’t seen a movie since the mid-’70s.
  That said, this week sees released on DVD two Irish movies that at the very least tried to shake things up for the indigenous film industry, although I’ll allow that I’m biased towards Anton (2008) because I know one of the producers. Still, for a movie that was independently made, and for a budget of around €500,000, it’s a minor triumph. To wit:
Ireland, 1970s. Returning home to County Cavan after five years at sea, Anton O’Neill (Anthony Fox) finds himself sucked into the Troubles that have erupted across the border in Northern Ireland. A political innocent, he becomes a pawn in the hands of ruthless terrorists, all the while striving to stay one step ahead of the hardboiled Detective Lynch (Gerard McSorley). With a baby on the way, Anton has big decisions to make – but he’s quickly discovering that sometimes it’s the decisions that make you. Made on a miniscule budget, Anton at times displays the kind of naïveté that bedevils Anton himself, and some of the dialogue is unforgivably clunky. For all that, and particularly given its humble origins, the movie represents something of a call to arms to the indigenous film industry, especially in the context of the series of more lavishly funded and abysmally executed Irish movies we’ve been subjected to in the last couple of years. Vivid cinematography and strong performances in the key roles make for a compelling drama, with Fox (who also wrote the script) marking himself out as a name to watch.
  Re-released this week is Adam & Paul (2004), which may well be the best Irish movie ever made. To wit:
Lenny Abrahamson’s Adam & Paul is a rough diamond that follows ‘dying sick’ junkies Adam (Mark O’Halloran) and Paul (Tom Murphy) on their day-long purgatory through inner-city Dublin as they try to beg, borrow, scam or steal the money that will get them their next fix, with only an occasional toke to take the edge off. If that sounds like a bleak prospect, then be assured that script-writer O’Halloran has read and appreciated Beckett for his combination of black despair and blacker humour: rather than wait around for the elusive Godot, our latter-day Pozzo and Lucky tramp the streets in a Ulysses-style odyssey, encountering various friends, enemies and (for the most part) people who veer clear. Abrahamson makes wonderful use of Dublin’s grimmer environs, O’Halloran has a wonderful ear for vernacular dialogue, and the central roles are excellently played, with Murphy just about claiming the laurels. Hauntingly dark and frequently touching, Adam and Paul is also hilarious: when the pair mistake a Bulgarian (Caramitru) on a park bench for a Romanian refugee, the enraged Bulgarian denounces Dublin as ‘a shit-hole’ on the basis that the city is full of “maniacs, liars and fucking Romanians.” Assured and provocative, albeit indulgently sympathetic to its characters’ addiction, this as good a film as you’ll see all year.

4 comments:

seana graham said...

Thanks, Declan.Both sound well worth checking out.

Mike Dennis said...

Declan--
Leave it to an Irish-American to ask this question. What is a load of pants?

Declan Burke said...

Mike - a load of pants is a load of rubbish. We mostly wear kilts over here, y'see ...

Cheers, Dec

Photographe à Dublin said...

Hiberno-English is not for the faint of heart.