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.................... FILM SCENE ....................
ALIVE
ALIVE O (1999)
Directed By Sé Merry Doyle
Produced by Bernadine Carraher
Alive Alive
O: A Requiem for Dublin is a new film from Dublin director Se Merry Doyle, whose
previous work includes an acclaimed documentary on James Gandon - the
architect responsible for many of the capital's landmark buildings.
The new
48 minute film looks at the plight of Dublin's forgotten
people - its street traders and the inner city communities they come from,
as they battle for survival in the increasingly changing landscape of
the capital.
Using archive
footage and photographs, as well as material the
director shot as far back as 1982, Doyle creates a loving picture of a
community that continues to exist, despite what seems like a concerted effort
by the authorities and big business to remove them from their
traditional markets and homes.
Doyle's
unorthodox approach, using a haunting narrative by poet
Paula Meehan, a trader's child who grew up in the inner-city, and his almost
total omission of shots of Dublin's newer buildings, creates a strange
sense of time in the film. Even quite recent scenes seem
distant. The viewer is forced to look at parts of the city it can sometimes
be easier to ignore.
Financial
difficulties have held up completion of the film, though
ironically, the four year production period has coincided with a time of
unprecedented change in the capital.
"A
lot just seemed to happen as I was going on," says Doyle. "If you
looked out your window five years ago the city was totally different to
what it is today.
Doyle says
his film is about the fight for the heart and soul of the
city: "Society is trying to hide people from its view, as if they can't
house them in this new modern Dublin.
"There
seems to be a new Dublin - a Dublin that is so wealthy, so
endowed with money and going somewhere fast, that it dosen't want the past
to be recognised.
The communities
the traders come from are among the poorest in the
country, and have been ravaged by the city's heroin epidemic. The film
shows a memorial Christmas tree in Sean McDermott Street containing 86
stars - one for every local lost to the drug.
One trader
explains how heroin has destroyed two generations of the
community's young people, and how they have now taken matters into their own
hands and forced out the drug dealers in order to save a third generation
from a similar fate.
Highpoint
of the film is when former traders from the currently
closed Iveagh Market in Francis Street, return to the now empty building and
reminisce about the old days. They look at old film and photos of the
market in its heyday, and spot former colleagues, some now deceased. It
is a genuinely touching moment in what is an affecting, and always
enjoyable film.
The Iveagh
traders sign off with a traditional song, showing that
though their city can be bulldozed and taken away from them, the spirit of
the real Dub will never be defeated.
Four years
on after production began, funding is still required to
put the finishing touches to Alive Alive O - producer Bernadine Carraher,
whom Doyle credits with rescuing the project, is critical of RTE's
attitude to the film: "We've had the Film Board and the Arts Council
backing us all the way, but RTE doesn't seem to think it's prime time
viewing."
The film
should be seen by a wide audience, she says: "unless people
wake up and see what's happening with the city now, it will be gone in
five years, and they'll be saying - why didn't we do something?"
John Prendergast ©1999