Arracht

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.

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.

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.

Arracht: 1845, the potato blight is on the way, it has a distinctive smell. Colmán (Dónall Ó Héalaí) is a tenant farmer, a fisherman, a poiín distiller, a folk healer. The sight of a Galway hooker boat with it's red sail, small isles in the background the sun on the sea; building a stone wall, always plenty of stones in the fields of Connemara. Drinking the poitín, Colman avoids it, eating the mackerel and potatoes. But a dark is approaching, not just the potato blight but the landlord wants to increase the rent. Patsy (Dara Devaney) a deserter from the navy has a run in with bailiff when he comes to Colmán's house. Colmán goes to the landlord in an attempt to persuade him to lower the rents, bringing Patsy with him to apologise to the bailiff. The landlord is unmoved but mayhem results when Patsy reveals his dark side.

We see the result of the Great Famine, Colmán's family are dead, many perish from disease as well as from starvation, a pestilence and a blight are upon the land. Colmán has been in hiding for two years on the islet where he kept his poitín still. Some great shots of the narrow inlet leading to Colmán's cave where he hears the voices of his dead wife and son. Venturing to the mainland occasionally, helping with his folk medicines he meets a young girl, Kitty (Saise Ní Chuinn), who he nurses back to heath. Their developing father/daughter relationship fills out the second half of the film. But there are a few plot twists and the narrative is infused with dark events. People who are hungry will act abnormally, the true horror of the Famine is illustrated through this and the sporadic finding of bodies by Colmán, these were all locals he knew. The Great Famine didn't just happen: it was imposed upon the people. Great performances by Ó Héalaí, Devaney and especially by Saise Ní Chuinn. Directed and written by Tomás Ó Súilleabháin. In Irish with English subtitles. 9/10.

"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.