Slow-moving and extremely melodramatic film, but still interesting. Rare in that it compares a girl's (as opposed to the more common male narratives) coming-of-age to a nation's coming-of-age.
There is a certain amount of James Joyce-ian cruelty and mocking towards the Irish, Anglo-Irish, and British identities depicted in this film. The British soldiers are portrayed as silly, superficial, self-absorbed characters. Yet they are also powerful in that they have shaped the identities of both the Anglo-Irish (or pseudo-British) family, and the lower-class Irish "freedom-fighters." Once the soldiers leave to return to the front-lines, both Irish "halves" lose their purposes and identities. The director asks harshly, "Who are you and what is left of yourselves once your audience and oppressor have left?"
Likewise, the coming-of-age experiences of Lois, and "the woman passing out of her prime" story of Marda (played really well by Fiona Shaw) are also critically assessed. Lois is just beginning to discover the power (sometimes dangerously misdirected) that comes with female sexuality, while Marda is experiencing the powerlessness of female aging. Again, the director makes the point that identity cannot sustain on the outside; it must come from within.
*******Spoilers*******
Unlike the Irish and the Anglo-Irish family, however, Lois does possess a very strong inner core of identity that remains untouched, and it is not because she is oblivious to or uninvolved with the complicated social, political, religious, and economic situations that she encounters. Her strength in knowing who she is remains steady throughout. Therefore, the fact that she leaves Ireland at the end of the film can be seen as tragic. And it's an extra dig that she leaves for America. The U.S. during the 1920s was generally regarded as place where you forgot where you came from so that you could become an "American." But had Ireland - as a country, as a nation, as a homeland - become a place where someone with so strong an identity would be left unsatisfied?
There is a certain amount of James Joyce-ian cruelty and mocking towards the Irish, Anglo-Irish, and British identities depicted in this film. The British soldiers are portrayed as silly, superficial, self-absorbed characters. Yet they are also powerful in that they have shaped the identities of both the Anglo-Irish (or pseudo-British) family, and the lower-class Irish "freedom-fighters." Once the soldiers leave to return to the front-lines, both Irish "halves" lose their purposes and identities. The director asks harshly, "Who are you and what is left of yourselves once your audience and oppressor have left?"
Likewise, the coming-of-age experiences of Lois, and "the woman passing out of her prime" story of Marda (played really well by Fiona Shaw) are also critically assessed. Lois is just beginning to discover the power (sometimes dangerously misdirected) that comes with female sexuality, while Marda is experiencing the powerlessness of female aging. Again, the director makes the point that identity cannot sustain on the outside; it must come from within.
*******Spoilers*******
Unlike the Irish and the Anglo-Irish family, however, Lois does possess a very strong inner core of identity that remains untouched, and it is not because she is oblivious to or uninvolved with the complicated social, political, religious, and economic situations that she encounters. Her strength in knowing who she is remains steady throughout. Therefore, the fact that she leaves Ireland at the end of the film can be seen as tragic. And it's an extra dig that she leaves for America. The U.S. during the 1920s was generally regarded as place where you forgot where you came from so that you could become an "American." But had Ireland - as a country, as a nation, as a homeland - become a place where someone with so strong an identity would be left unsatisfied?