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| Director Colm Bairéad |
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| Catherine Clinch and Andrew Bennett on the set |
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| Producer Cleona Ní Chrualaoí, partner of the director |
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| Irish writer Claire Keegan |
THE QUIET GIRL (An Cailín Ciúin) B Ireland (95 mi) 2022 d: Colm Bairéad
If you were mine, I’d never leave you in a house with strangers. —Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley)
This is a film that is not what you expect, subdued, carefully measured, and small in scope, where the entire film is little more than a girl goes and stays with relatives, filled with everyday moments that suggest nothing out of the ordinary, yet it builds emotional complexity by creating plenty of room to breathe, allowing viewers moments of quiet reflection, something not often accessible in films of today, giving this a literary feel, where time is enlarged and expanded, very patiently developing an intrinsic relationship to Irish culture by accentuating the importance of the land and the language. Adapted from an 85-page extended short story entitled Foster, Foster | The New Yorker (an abridged version), by Wexford author Claire Keegan, which won the Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award in 2009, at the time the world’s richest prize for a story, now part of the school syllabus in Ireland, especially known for its warm empathy and astute observations of people, with the director, whose background is in documentaries, clearly inspired by Lynne Ramsay’s early short film GASMAN (1998), Lynne Ramsay's 1970s Christmas in Scotland YouTube (14:19), which ranks among his all-time favorites, intent on bringing his native language back to the screen. Listed at #22 of The 50 best films of 2022 | Sight and Sound - BFI, while also among the five Oscar finalists in Best International Feature, one unique aspect of the film is its language, spoken entirely in Irish, winning seven out of ten categories at the Irish Film and Television Awards, becoming the highest-grossing Irish language film of all time, and the only one to receive an Oscar nomination. While Gaelic refers to a group of languages, the Republic of Ireland’s official language is called Gaeilge, the name for Irish in the Irish language, yet despite being constitutionally declared the country’s official language in 1922 and a compulsory subject in Irish schools, Gaeilge’s usage has declined to the point of being declared endangered by the United Nations, estimating there are only 20,000 to 40,000 Irish speakers worldwide. Instead, English has become the dominant spoken language of the country, a colonial legacy left behind by the British. The history of films produced in the Irish language is disappointingly thin, Fís Éireann: Irish Language Films, where Bob Quinn’s POITÍN (1978) was the first feature film to be made entirely in Irish, and it would be thirty years before the next one, while other notable examples only utilize the language briefly, like John Sayle’s THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH (1994), Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Steve McQueen’s HUNGER (2008), or John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard (2011). For many speakers of the Irish language, this may be the first opportunity to hear that language spoken onscreen, given Ireland’s history of suppressing its own language on screens, in classrooms, and in homes in favor of English. As a minority language, it’s only spoken in certain regions, in the west and northwest, and only occasionally in the south where this story is set. One person who valiantly fought to hold onto that language is the director’s father, a teacher who only speaks Irish, helping set up an Irish-speaking school in Northern Dublin that included actor Brendan Gleeson as a student. According to Bairéad in Motherland, Father Tongue - Curzon, he grew up in a bilingual household where his mother spoke English but his father spoke only Irish, claiming “He did this simply out of a deep-rooted belief in the value of language and a conviction that our own, declining native tongue was something worth saving.”
Most films shot in Ireland emphasize the lush greenery of the landscapes, like John Ford’s THE QUIET MAN (1952), David Lean’s Ryan's Daughter (1970), or Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), but this does not, instead we’re often stuck inside narrowly compressed rooms, the backseat of a car, or glancing out the window of a small kitchen, where an everpresent painting of Jesus Christ hangs on the wall. The film retains the story’s 1981 setting, a time of turmoil in Ireland where jobs were few, money was scarce, and the violence and civil unrest from the Troubles dominated the lives of ordinary citizens (How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland - HISTORY), yet those discussions are absent here, told instead from a child’s perspective, withholding adult conversations that wouldn’t have been understood, while also avoiding all sentimentality. However, by eliminating the first-person perspective of the story, with no added narration, Bairéad instead utilizes silences, relying upon subtleties in capturing the loneliness and sadness of a melancholic, emotionally withdrawn nine-year-old Cáit (Catherine Clinch), as we find ourselves in rural Ireland, 1981, with Cáit seen at the outset hidden in the tall grasses of a field, listening to the sounds of nature, far away from the harsh reality of her dysfunctional family. When she returns to her house, we quickly realize why she craves solitude, isolated even within her own family, living a life in fear of everything around her, unloved by her parents, neglected by her many siblings who are loud and obnoxious, while ridiculed by her school peers for being a slow student, where it’s evident that poverty has stripped this world of its humanity, with escape from reality being her only recourse, as she desperately tries to find her own way in the world. Her father (Michael Patric) appears to have drinking and gambling problems, as he gambled away the money to pay workers to cultivate their fields, leaving the family even more destitute and financially troubled, with too many mouths to feed, while her mother (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) is already worn out and exhausted with more children than she can handle, as an unattended baby is always heard crying in the background, with another child on the way (contraception was inaccessible at that time), while Cáit is viewed as the problem child who has a tendency to wet the bed, reducing her to shame, becoming lost in her own world of daydreams. So her mother arranges for the troublesome Cáit to spend the summer with her older, distant cousin Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) and her husband Seán (Andrew Bennett), dairy farmers who live three hours away in Waterford County in southern Ireland, THE QUIET GIRL / AN CAILÍN CIÚIN (2022) movie clip YouTube (2:30), where her father is in such a rush to get back home that he leaves her suitcase in the back seat of the car as he drives off. Abandoned by her family, left with people who may as well be strangers, with nothing whatsoever that’s familiar to her, the feeling she gets is like being dropped off on a distant planet, having no inkling what to expect, reminiscent of the sad young girls in Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman (2021). The dialogue is minimalist, with much of the neo-realist story conveyed without words, including period television programs heard running in the background, with a tender piano and strings-infused score composed by Stephen Rennicks, who also wrote the music for Lenny Abrahamson’s 2014 Top Ten List #10 Frank and Room (2015), resulting in a deceptively simple production, where the relationships are scarcely drawn, composed of recurring moments that reflect a life of growing up on a farm, where there are animals and chores and plenty of fresh air, and seemingly miles between neighbors.
Cáit’s parents simply have too much on their hands to figure out what’s at the root of her inward nature, painfully shy and preferring not to speak mostly, perhaps overcompensating for the lack of attention she never seems to receive in the boisterous clutter of her home life. Eibhlín, on the other hand, shows her kindness straightaway, very attentive to her needs, tenderly bathing her, brushing her hair, and dressing her in old clothes more suitable for farm work, while Seán remains more distant and withdrawn, busily tending to the daily work around the farm. In something of a surprise, Eibhlín provides a moral foundation by telling her, “There are no secrets in this house. Where there’s a secret, there’s shame—and shame is something we can do without.” Nonetheless, when Cáit accompanies Seán on some daily chores in the barn, but wanders off, he becomes inexplicably angry at her, dispelling any notion of tranquility in the air, suggesting something far deeper lies under the surface, where secrets abound in this gigantic home that is strangely empty. Thoroughly displeased by his impulsive response, Seán gradually displays more patience, impressed by her willingness to help sweep up in the barn (she was actually searching for another broom when she wandered off earlier) or help feed a young calf, leaving behind little biscuit treats at the breakfast table, before inventing a game to see how fast she can pick up the mail each day, running to the end of a long tree-lined road and back, something she fully enjoys, finally making her feel good about herself. When an old neighbor dies, she witnesses a funeral service, with one of the women looking after her for a while, allowing Eibhlín and Seán to help out with the guests, but as some neighbors often do, she grows nosy, curious why she’s spending the summer before blurting out shocking personal information that takes Cáit completely by surprise, opening up old wounds, reverting back to her withdrawn demeanor, which is a a noticeable setback. Taking her aside, Seán assures her, “You don’t have to say anything. Always remember that. Many’s a person who missed the opportunity to say nothing and lost much because of it.” Both mirror each other’s personalities, stoically introverted, lacking the social grace of others, but thoughtful and hard workers nonetheless. The cinematography by Kate McCullough captures the charm of the Irish countryside, with the sunlight flickering through the trees, with Eibhlín showing her the magic of a hidden well with “secret” skin care properties, yet a moonlit walk to the sea may be the most unforgettable setting, luminous and elegiaic, expressing its own poetry, mirroring an unseen inner transformation taking place while also conveying a child’s innocent but always careful and insightful observations of the world. On a parallel track, Seán also sings a song in Irish-Gaelic, which is heard but never seen, one of the small wonders beautifully interwoven into the film. A gentle and restrained story of innate kindness contrasted against the stark neglect and abuse of her home life, the dramatic power is achieved through a meticulous rhythmic structure built upon daily routines, where the accumulation of small, mundane moments resembles the precision of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce,1080 Bruxelles (1976), newly listed at #1 on the BFI Sight and Sound greatest films of all time poll (Revealed: the results of the 2022 Sight and Sound Greatest ...), especially the way it leads to a cathartic emotional release at the end, with buried emotions finally rising to the surface, conveying the pervasive influence of intergenerational trauma.
