La gran hambruna

Just watched Black 47 tonight in West Belfast with a hushed audience. A story about injustice and famine and how comradeship can redeem the evil in man. A dark and emotional film which will make you cry - and whoop as some of the culprits are served justice by a man of the people.

What an amazing piece of film making on show here. Its essentially a Western set to the back drop of The Irish Potato famine. That this period has never really been depicted before really is sad,as its a time that should never be forgotten. Both the leads in James Frecheville as Feeney,and Hugo Weaving as Hannah are simply masterful. Whilst we may be used to Weaving putting in such a great roll Frecheville is a relative newcomer.But judging from the intensity that he brings to this part he will be around for a long time. This should be required viewing to anybody who studies English history. Bravo.

This piece of the dark history about how the Ireland people was brutally treated by the British is like the Jewish Holocaust that have been repeatedly made into novels and films. My latest viewing of it was the TV series "Highlander" about how the Scotland people were so cruelly treated by the British. This 'Black '47" is one of the best films that I have viewed in late of this year. It's so thoughtful, dark, dreary, atrocious, cruel, bloody and sad; a mixture of unforgetable and undeniable heartless inhuman crime committed by the British Empire and its aristocratic society.

The whole film is well scripted, directed and performed by a bunch of A-list actors to support a not quite well known actor, James Frecheville, to play the leading "Fenny" role. There's no romantic moment at all in this film, only the horrible human sufferings. I just felt sad and numb when this film ended, but at the same time, would like to praise its seriousness of making this film.

I went to see this expecting it to be the usual anti-English "begod and begorragh" Hollywood nonsense. It pleasantly surprised me. I heard it described as a "potato western" as opposed to a "spaghetti western" and that sort of describes it. A high plains drifter in the rains of Connemara avenging his slain family but with a difference. I wanted to criticise the Irish/ Gaelic used in it....but I couldn't. It was fluid and believable though I felt the lead actor James Frecheville's "Irish" was a bit too "good Dublin school" rather than natural Gaeltacht. What a surprise to learn he isn't Irish at all and that he learned Irish for the part !. Kudos. His accent in English completely fooled me.....I would have sworn he was Irish.....totally amazed to learn he's Australian ! The only bit I can criticise about this film is the "starving" peasentry looked a bit too well fed.....though some of the kids do look scrawny and the safety glass and door handle in the Pub door in the last scene is a bit of a continuity screw up.....other than that it's a stylish film well made and very believable.

A great script, cast, acting, covering a great tale of injustice and violence. Incredible the amount of great Cinema that barely gets an airing in the UK. Historical events such as the Famine, Culloden, Easter Rising, Transportation, Glencoe Massacre, Tolpuddle martyrs, Peterloo and the Highland Clearances are stories that deserve telling. Instead the Big Budgets are left to fetishise WW2 again and again.