WOW!!! A cooool little discovery was sent in to Father Geek this morning. Thats what I like about all these festivals everywhere... not only do you fine out about current and future projects, but films that slipped through the cracks in the cutting room floor get brought to light and life also... and I don't know about you, but ol' Father Geek loves cool cinema weather it came out last year, or in the last 2 decades, or if its coming out next year, or beyond... If I haven't seen it, its a NEW movie to me...
Here's a short review of an Irish film I caught at the Vlissingen festival. I don't think anyone has reviewed it on AICN before, and it's well worth a look!
Best, Eliane
SALTWATER (Ireland, 1999)
Anton Sirius recently reviewed Conor McPherson's Beckett adaptation "Endgame," which he heartily recommended. So I thought I'd fill you in on a previous McPherson effort, "Saltwater," which was shown at the 2000 Berlin film festival but is only now beginning to be released on a wider scale. It stars, amongst others, Brendan Gleeson, Peter McDonald, Conan Mullen, Brian Cox, Eva Birthistle and Catherine O'Boyle and it's worth a look.
"Saltwater" is an Irish film set (surprise!) amongst the working classes. It presents a week in the lives of the Beneventis, a motherless Italian family running a chippie in an Irish holiday resort named Saltwater.
Now I hear you ask, "Why would any self-respecting Italian family want to serve fish and chips in an Irish holiday resort?" I asked myself that same question, but wasn't given an answer. I can only say that the Beneventis' being Italian doesn't seem to matter much in the film, besides the fact that it enables them to cheat at cards. (Not my words. It's what the pater familias says at the beginning of the film.)
Anyway, a week in the life of the Beneventis. How much film-worthy stuff can happen in a week? Well, a lot, apparently. First of all, the eldest son finds out his dad owes a lot of money, and sets out to get it by robbing the very man in whose debt his dad is - with a gun consisting of two glued-together plastic tubes. Then the youngest son hooks up with a new classmate who seems to be the sort of guy your mother used to warn you for and gets into girl trouble. And finally, the Beneventis' daughter's boyfriend, a philosophy lecturer who's just given up the booze ("technically"), is having an affair with one of his students and given an intellectual challenge at the same time. Blimey.
It's enough to make you drink, and that's what the characters in "Saltwater" do. Profusely. So profusely, in fact, that the local police officer at one stage asks, "Why is everyone in this town always pissed?" To which the oldest Beneventi boy, Frank, answers: "Because they have no direction."
Fortunately, the film does have a direction, and a pretty good one at that. "Saltwater" is a well-paced drama with a few harrowing scenes (which, thanks to a good build-up, have a great feel of impending doom to them) and a smattering of laugh-out-loud moments. The acting is excellent, the ending is pleasantly open (after all, few things are ever concluded within the space of a week), and the Plague Monkeys provide an appropriate musical background to the whole thing.
But there are better reasons to see this film.
First of all, it boasts the most memorable puke scene ever committed to celluloid. The audience I watched the film with kept pissing themselves for a full minute afterwards, which should tell you just how funny they found the whole thing.
Secondly, it provides blokes with a brilliant pick-up line with which to procure ladies for socially inept mates. It may not work for you, but it's worth memorising for when you're feeling altruistic.
Finally, it's in delightful and easy-to-comprehend Irish. Those of you who fell all over me when I said I had trouble understanding the local accents used in "Accelerator" will be pleased to hear that I had no problem whatsoever with the Irish spoken in this film. Nor should anyone else, for that matter.
I have no way of knowing when "Saltwater" will be released in a cinema near you, but I do recommend you watch it when it is. It's worth the admission price for the puke scene alone.
