|
Pilgrim Hill
| Released |
12 April 2013 |
| Director |
Gerard Barrett |
Starring
|
Joe Mullins, Muiris Crowley, Corina Gough, Kevin McCormack, Keith Byrne |
| Writer(s) |
Gerard Barrett |
| Producer(s) |
Gerard Barrett |
| Origin |
Ireland |
| Running Time |
96 minutes |
| Genre |
Drama |
| Rating |
12A |
|
|
Bottom of the Hill.
Told in an unrelentingly bleak documentary style, Pilgrim Hill is a deeply unpleasant watch chronicling the daily struggles of a lonely Irish farmer.
Through a series of didactic vignettes we become acquainted with Jimmy Walsh; emotionally stilted and held back by every surrounding institution (mother’s suicide, an ailing off-screen father, his own stagnancy and devotion to the land). Farming is all Jimmy knows and he derives no simple pleasures from his pastoral existence - even weekly visits to the pub are marked by routine and deathly silence. Tensions occur on the farm when one of his cow’s contracts disease and the situation only becomes direr by the day – you won’t exactly be brimming with enthusiasm for life when it’s all over.
While the film’s message that there are characters like this being left behind in rural Ireland hits home, even the bleakly serene Garage found some beauty in the most oppressive of circumstances. The documentary interview style serves as the nail in the coffin, removing any subtlety or nuance Jimmy might have had. As a result, the emotional finale remains up in the air and a closing piece of dialogue solidifies his position and dashes all hopes of escape.
Although it’s impressive that first-time filmmaker Gerard Barrett made this on a micro budget when he was just twenty-four, it’s also worrying how someone could have such a misanthropic outlook at such a young age. In brief, Pilgrim Hill can be added to the already expansive list of depressing but ultimately meaningless home-grown efforts.
- Cathal Prendergast |
