That They May Face the Rising Sun

Pat Collins’ first narrative film largely, refreshingly, lacks a conventional narrative. Adapted from John McGahern’s final novel, it reveals the director’s considerable skill with both sight and sound, a fine cast, and a surprisingly explicit wink to Ozu. Collins lovingly frames a hallowed rural Irish community of a half-century ago, whose religion and traditions provide order, and hope, but are nevertheless already significantly hollowed out. Indeed, for all of the film’s prose-tinted passion, it has an unmistakably funereal feel. Its people, and those like them, are buried in their stony grey soil, the bones on which today’s Ireland are built. [For more on McGahern, see his entry in _The Dictionary of Irish Biography_ at https://www.dib.ie/biography/mcgahern-john-a9414.]