Arracht

The first thirty minutes of this film is very good in setting out the core of the story and the concluding ten minutes is also good. However, the middle section is a bit plodding and drags. Overall the film is well acted and very atmospheric. I saw this film at the Glasgow Film Festival.

Monster is told in the Irish language with English subtitles. Those of us of Irish-Catholic descent are familiar with the Great Hunger. A man is forced by circumstances to hide from his British rulers. The man lives a harsh life, subsisting mostly on fish. The story is tragic but necessary. One of the best foreign language movies of 2021.

"Colmán Sharkey" (a strong performance from Dónall Ó Héalai) lives peaceably with his wife and young son on the West Coast of Ireland. They live a pretty subsistence existence, supplementing their basic potato farming with some fishing and a thriving little poteen business. Their livelihoods become doubly blighted, however, upon the arrival of "Patsy" (Dara Devaney) - a naval deserter; and with the bug that ruins their crops. It's at this point they get a visit from the agents for the English landlord to collect the rents, so "Colmán" decides they ought to go visit the man - with whom he is on fairly reasonable terms - to renegotiate the proposed increases. It is at this meeting that "Patsy" goes a bit off piste, and carnage ensues. The film now jumps forward a few years and we find "Colmán" sleeping in a cave, living a solitary existence, surviving on fish and there is no sign of his family. What happened to him in the intervening years is relayed to us via his gradual adoption of the abandoned "Kitty" (Saise Ní Chuinn) and their struggle for survival. The story is actually pretty poignant at the beginning, and the first half hour offers us an insight into just how hand-to-mouth their lives were in the mid-19th century, but that potency falls away as we are presented with some beautiful, but rather repetitive scenery and scenes in his boat - and the pace becomes just a little too depressed. The imagery is gorgeous, sometimes bleak, and the audio is really effective too - the constant wind howling, the sea lapping - it all contributes hugely to this sensual feast of a film. The ending is too rushed, and that's a shame - but this film is still pretty stunning to look at and to listen too; though maybe a little more meat on the bones of the characterisations wouldn't have gone amiss. Try to see it on a big screen if you can.

I found this film moving, it really got to the point and shows the life that Irish people lead in them times and in my eyes it is one of the best made famine era story's that has been told, acting was brilliant, well directed and great story would love to see more of these sort of period dramas showing the hardships of Irish people true the struggles of been suppressed for over 700 years that is not taught in schools in other nations eg Cornwall's conquest of Ireland, the battle of the Boyne just to name a few. It's great to hear our native tongue sound so beautiful in such a dark time in our history but made the film much more believable.

Arracht (or Monster for the English title) is an entirely (well almost) Irish spoken drama. For some reason I thought Irish would have words that sounded similar to English but to my surprise there were none, it's a totally different language. The story itself wasn't bad but sometimes it was a bit too slow paced, some scenes were just dragged out a bit. The acting wasn't bad tough. Good cinematography and photography in a rather dark colour that accentuated the feeling of misery that is present in the entire plot. I watched it once and I won't watch it again. Good enough movie but not something I need to watch again.