Arracht

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 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.

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.

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.

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.