Following his acclaimed (and semi-autobiographical) Small Faces, and his somewhat less successful Hollywood film, Simple Twist of Fate, Scottish director Gillies Mackinnon returns to Ireland - where he shot his 1992 film, The Playboys - for a rough, affectionate but decidedly unsentimental look at the country's outsiders - the 'travellers', who used to be known as tinkers.
Wexford writer Billy Roche's story focuses on Trojan Eddie (Stephen Rea), who is one of life's losers. Although a 'townie' himself, he works for the leader of the local travellers, the ruthless but charismatic John Power (Richard Harris), selling goods out of the back of a Trojan van.
Always on the look-out for a way of making enough money to set up in business on his own, Eddie gets caught up in the lethal aftermath of Power's obsession with a young girl (Aislin McGuckin), whom he marries but who runs off with his nephew, Dermot (Stuart Townsend), on the wedding night.
'I was interested in creating this strange, cinematic world that Trojan Eddie has just almost wandered into and can't get out of,' says Roche. 'Eddie is what the travellers call a tosser. Very often, travellers will have a settled guy working for them, who they'll send on menial tasks.'
'It's a brilliant script,' says Mackinnon. 'Billy isn't writing what he thinks people want to buy or see: he's just doing what interests him. What I loved about the script was that it happens in this everyday world, but there are these mad stories of deluded love. All the people in the film are looking for something they can't have.'
'I was adamant that, when I started writing this, it would be cinema, and that's what it is,' says Roche, commenting on the excitement of seeing the finished version of Trojan Eddie for the first time. 'Cinema should be big and strong. There's no point in making a film about somebody going to the shops to buy half-a-dozen eggs. Cinema should be dramatic and, to me, this looks like fabulous stuff. The best thing of all is, while I was writing it, I imagined Stephen Rea playing Trojan Eddie. I imagined Richard Harris playing John Power...'
Prod co: Initial Films/Channel Four Films, in association with Irish Screen and with the participation of Bord Scannan na hEireann/The Irish Film Board.
Prod: Emma Burge.
Dir: Gillies Mackinnon
Guión (Scr): Billy Roche
Foto (Ph): John de Borman
Art dir (Prod des): Frank Conway
Mus: John Keane
Mont (Ed): Scott Thomas
Ints (Cast): Stephen Rea (Trojan Eddie), Richard Harris (John Power), Stuart Townsend (Dermot), Aislin McGuckin (Kathleen), Brendan Gleeson (Ginger), Sean McGinley (Raymie)
Ventas (Sales): Film Four International
Duración (Running time): 105 mins.
PROGRAMACION (Screening): 20 Sep, 12.00, VE; 20 Sep, 19.00, VE; 20 Sep, 23.00, Astoria 1; 21 Sep, 18.15, Astoria 3
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