Competition
The Butcher Boy
Although Patrick McCabe landed a solid bestseller with his book The
Butcher Boy and won several awards, he remains modestly down-to-(the Irish)-earth.
He considers it a great privilege that a master such as Neil Jordan should
adapt his novel into a film. "I feel as if Michelangelo and Mozart
knocked on my door, rolled up their sleeves and said: ‘Let’s get to work
– now what exactly are your dreams?!’"
He’s right! Variety celebrated Jordan’s coming-of-age story in 1960s
Ireland as a classic – only comparisons with Truffaut’s The 400 Blows,
Fellini’s Amarcord and Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange could do justice to
Jordan’s most original and disturbing film.
The father (Stephen Rea) of 12-year-old Francie Brady (Eamonn Owens)
is an alcoholic, his mother (Aisling O’Sullivan) is committed after several
nervous breakdowns, and the arrogant neighbour Mrs Nugent (a tour de force
performance by Fiona Shaw) makes Francie personally responsible for the
misery in his family. Francie retreats into a fantasy world in which he
can kill Indians and explore space – the final frontier – with the speed
of light.
The simmering feud with Mrs Nugent turns into open hostility, but the
obstinate Francie can’t beat the closed-minded smalltown morality. He lands
in a corrective institute which makes him even more of a loner. After that,
he finds work in a slaughterhouse. Of course, he must do the bloody dirty
work, unbearable for a 12-year-old. When even his best friend Joe (Alan
Boyle) turns away from him, the last tie betweenFrancie and normal existence
is severed.
Jordan depicts Francie’s suffering from his own point of view and connects
the episodes with a satirical voiceover (spoken by Stephen Rea). In the
increasingly surreal story, Francie’s comic-strip heroes finally gain the
upper hand. Andreas Kern
Synopsis
Ireland in the early 60s. Francis Brady (Eamonn Owens) is 12 years old
when his mother suffers a nervous breakdown after having attempted suicide,
leaving him in the care of a father who is a violent alcoholic. Francis
becomes a problem child, ending up at reform school. Here he finds solace
in his fantasies about a saint (Sinead O'Connor). As an adult, Francis
(Stephen Rea) returns home to find both his parents dead and all ties to
his past severed. His reaction to being left completely alone in the world
is one of uncontrollable brutality, which shocks the provincial town he
grew up in. Basing his film on the novel by Patrick McCabe (published in
1992), director Neil Jordan (Michael Collins) paints an unsettling and
bitterly ironic portrait of broken fantasy in this, his 10th film, which
is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece A Clockwork Orange in its
visual and emotional power.
(Dir): Neil Jordan (Scr) Patrick McCabe, Neil Jordan, based
upon an original idea by Patrick McCabe (Cast): Stephen Rea, Fiona
Shaw, Eamonn Owens, Ian Hart, Sinead O‘Connor Länge (Running time):124
Minutes
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