Bye-Child

2003
15m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Poster for "Bye-Child" - written & directed by Bernard Mac Laverty and based on a poem by Seamus Heaney. Nominated as Best Short Film BAFTA 2003

Bye-Child is Bernard MacLaverty's film version of Seamus Heaney's poem of the same title. It concerns the story of a male child who is secretly kept in a henhouse at the bottom of a garden i... Read allBye-Child is Bernard MacLaverty's film version of Seamus Heaney's poem of the same title. It concerns the story of a male child who is secretly kept in a henhouse at the bottom of a garden in a village in Ireland. The child, it is implied, is the product of incestuous relations, ... Read allBye-Child is Bernard MacLaverty's film version of Seamus Heaney's poem of the same title. It concerns the story of a male child who is secretly kept in a henhouse at the bottom of a garden in a village in Ireland. The child, it is implied, is the product of incestuous relations, the mother (Susan Lynch) having been sexually abused by her monstrous father (Dick Holland... Read all

Director
- Bernard MacLaverty
Writers
- Seamus Heaney
- Bernard MacLaverty
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.9/10

YOUR RATING

Director
- Bernard MacLaverty
Writers
- Seamus Heaney
- Bernard MacLaverty
Stars

3User reviews

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 1 win & 1 nomination total

Photos

User reviews3

7.944

Featured reviews

10jimbopjoe

Very meaningful

Great movie, very deep and emotional. I like the theme running in the background of this with the man landing on the moon thing that is on T.V, about how man can spend billions of dollars on sending men to the moon and yet there isn't enough money to give this family in the movie councelling so that the child can live a better life even though being rejected by the old man (her father or the mothers father?) also that the child has been so isolated that she isn't any better off than if she was sent to the moon.

10gazzastrip

excellent

The film is thought provoking and moving. As events quietly unfold, you are drawn in to the helpless position experienced by the woman and child. Through guilt she continues to care for her father, through fear she cannot seek help from the world, they are transfixed by the moon.

10Fiona-39

Beautiful, haunting, bleak

This film starts with the sound of heavy breathing and the camera tracking backwards and forwards, keeping the bright white moon in sight. This opening sets up the key visual and aural themes of the film: heavy breathing, the inability to express oneself in articulate speech, the inadequacy of speech and then the moon - symbol of ancient pagan belief and the "miracle" of modernity, progress and science. In the midst of these philosophical motifs is a breathtakingly sad story of child abuse and sexual violence, handled with admirable restraint and sympathy. Wonderful poetic moments too - the close-up on the kettle reaching boiling point or the shock of the final revelation of the child's face. An amazing achievement by Mclaverty, and a film that speaks volumes in a very sparse, pared down, controlled use of sound and image.