Buy tickets for our January 13 screening!
I came across the work of 26-year-old Irish filmmaker David O’Reilly completely by accident a little more than a year ago. I was interested in applying for the Berlinale Talent Campus, a sort of workshop for various types of people working in film. I was interested in the program for film journalists, but at TIFF 2010, picked up a glossy brochure and DVD that featured selections from the entire spectrum of workshops. One of the featured sections is a competition for film composers and in 2010 the contestants were challenged to score a strange little animated film by David O’Reilly called Please Say Something (2009), about a troubled relationship between a cat and a mouse. Its use of computer-rendered, though crude, cartoon characters was unusual, as was the mixture of violence and intimacy. It was as if the director was trying to tell a human story using the most artificial means possible. I found it refreshingly different.
With his latest film The External World O’Reilly has used an episodic structure and characters who wander in and out of each other’s stories to tell an even more emotionally resonant tale. The framing story is of a boy learning to play a haunting piano piece, coached by an abusive teacher who violently strikes him each time he makes a mistake. But the other stories and characters are often absurdly funny, and O’Reilly is fond of using imagery from cartoons and videogames which adds a heightened sense of action (and violence) to the proceedings. This is a constantly surprising piece of work with many laugh out loud moments, but by the end, it’s strangely moving. I can truthfully say I’ve never seen anything quite like it. This short trailer will give you a small idea of the mixture of moods.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udyxsfAPRGk&w=560&h=315]
I’ve been hesitant to write a post on this particular film because it’s available to watch in its entirety on YouTube. But I suspect that seeing this on a large screen with a group of other people will heighten the laughs as well as the more sombre notes, so I encourage you to come to our screening before succumbing to the temptation to watch it on the small screen. But after our screening, I strongly encourage you to go to the film’s website (linked below) where you can download a high-definition version of the film for just €4.