That They May Face the Rising Sun
Life in rural Ireland nearly half a century ago is lovingly evoked in Pat Collins’ drama.
Anna Bederke
The Irish director Pat Collins is a well-established documentarian who here moves into new fields by giving us a wholly fictional work, this being an adaptation of what proved to be the final novel by the acclaimed writer John McGahern. That They May Face the Rising Sun was published in 2002 and, in addition to directing this film version, Collins worked with Eamon Little on the screenplay. I have not read the original but, even without having done so, one senses strongly that the treatment here is lovingly done and totally respectful of McGahern’s work. As such, it is a quiet, observant film which, set in the late 1970s or early 1980s in County Leitrim, captures a time and a place. In doing so it rightly adopts a mode and a pace that make no concessions whatever to what might be considered commercially appealing today. In addition, the fact that it is so well cast adds immensely to its attraction.
The photographer here is Richard Kendrick who has worked with Collins before and their rapport is evident in the way that the rural location becomes essential to the character of the film (indeed the shot of a sunrise accompanied by piano music – in addition to the original score both Bach and Schumann feature – immediately sets the tone of the piece). Many of the characters are people who have lived in this community all their lives and, because many of those who are younger have moved away, the majority of them are elderly. In contrast we have a couple who have only been there for five years or so: one is the writer Joe Ruttledge (Barry Ward) who had in fact been born there and the other is his wife, Kate (Anna Bederke) who is not Irish and whose work as an artist has led to involvement in an art gallery in London. Although Joe is currently writing something, he is not sure what form it will take and at times he speaks out loud the words that come to him. Joe's books deal with day-to-day life without much in the way of drama and what he writes echoes the scenes that we are watching. At times they even extend to sounding like reflections on his present life as though they were instead memories of a past time which was happy yet which contained undercurrents not fully acknowledged.
As a portrait of an age gone by, this film is certainly aware of both the beauty of this rural setting and of the limited lives of those growing old there. One neighbour of the Ruttledges who sometimes acts as their handyman is the bachelor Patrick Ryan (Lalor Roddy) whose brother is taken to hospital and then dies and he is a man who lives alone. Another neighbour is Jamesie Murphy (Phillip Dolan) who is married to Mary (Ruth McCabe) but who has an uneasy relationship with his brother, Johnny (Sean McGinley) who had chosen to live in London. When Johnny’s life there comes apart, he wants to return but neither Jamesie nor Mary relish the idea of him moving back in with them. Ultimately, he does come back only for a visit and it is then that we realise the extent to which he is in need of friendship and support. In contrast Bill Evans (Brendan Conroy) has never left, but he was born a bastard and has always been looked down on and was ill-treated as a child. More positively another local man unexpectedly finds a wife late in life.
Rather than offering a plot as such, That They May Face the Rising Sun is a study of these people over the course of a year or so although there is one thread that comes up early on and is only resolved in the film’s closing moments. That concerns what view Kate Ruttledge will take when her partner in the London gallery (Declan Conlon) reveals that he will be moving on and that if the gallery is to survive she will have to make London and not Ireland her home base. If the film had been less well written and played all these bits and pieces could have seemed rather too slight to sustain our interest but both the individual characterisations and the interplay between these people are most persuasively detailed. Especially well judged is the sense in which the residents continue to see the Ruttledges as outsiders despite being friendly with them.
Ward and Bederke are just right as Joe and Kate (the wife's role is less fully developed but Bederke has the gift of making it count in spite of that). The older players also impress which is what we would expect from Roddy and McGinley but Dolan in his acting debut as Jamesie Murphy feels no less authentic. As a small-scale but telling Irish portrait piece, this film reminded me of John Huston's final masterpiece, his 1987 treatment of the James Joyce short story The Dead. That went deeper than this and this piece does perhaps lack a key focal centre as it moves around its various characters. Nevertheless, there is real artistry here and what it offers feels like an endorsement of what is said by Joe in a memorable scene in which he disapproves of blunt truth being spoken. Asked what he would prefer to see in our attitude to others, his response is "kindness, understanding, sympathy, tact, humour maybe”. That's an attitude fully apparent in That They May Face the Rising Sun.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Barry Ward, Anna Bederke, Ruth McCabe, Lalor Roddy, Sean McGinley, Phillip Dolan, John Olohan, Brendan Conroy, Catherine Byrne, Lola Mae McCornick, Declan Conlon, Patrick Ryan.
Dir Pat Collins, Pro Tina O’Reilly and Brendan J. Byrne, Screenplay Eamon Little and Pat Collins, from the novel by John McGahern, Ph Richard Kendrick, Pro Des Padraig O’Neill, Ed Keith Walsh, Music Irene Buckley and Linda Buckley, Costumes Louise Stanton.
Harvest Films-Conic.
111 mins. Ireland/UK. 2023. UK Rel: 26 April 2024. Cert. 15.
