Arracht

The start of the Irish disease potato famine in 1845 reaching its peak in 1847 where millions died & millions fled, many to the Americas where they faced discrimination. This dramatization starts with a few Irish asking their English landlord not to raise the rents as the people are starving. Subsequently an adversarial relationship develops & escalates. Titled (in my opinion inaccurately) as "Monster", but in Irish "Arracht". Some of the period Irish dialogue was hard to understand; subtitling helped somewhat.

It's a historical drama about a present we are still stuck and live in. Interesting use of special effects flickering through the memories of a mourning father and taking the dark gloominess of the moss covered coast mountains. Splendid use of audio effects setting the atmosphere. Cast put up a remarkable performance with their assignments. It's a quiet story with an intriguing progression and a beautiful conclusion. A tragedy that changed the course of a country's culture is briefed and signalled well with the brief fateful encounter between the landlord and peasant. Monster is a tale of survival that has beauty worth appreciation.

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.

This film has a has a great start, and a brilliant ending.

This film is based at the start of the irish famine in the 1800s, and shows just how desperate people were from starvation!

The dialogue is in irish (with English subtitles) and in English for scenes with English landlords. I think thats another reason that this film is fantastic, it's in its native tongue, which most irishmen/women spoke at the time. I'm giving this a 10/10 for its excellent cinematography, for its brilliant acting and for its historic accuracy on the famine ! A must watch.

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.