They say the Irish live this magic realism, half-in and half-out of the dream world. The Irish say it themselves, in fact! They say it all over the place in The Secret of Roan Inish. This movie takes some very weird things as fact: shape-shifting, for one, as the native Americans call it. In Irish lore, about which I know not much, there is this creature called the Selkie: a seal-person, something like a mermaid, only Selkies can shed their sealskin and emerge wholly human. Apparently, they are all very good-looking, too.
Fiona's grandfather's grandfather married one. That's why, though most of the Coneellys are blond as Fiona, once in awhile they "spit out a dark one." The movie is about a family thus affected, and yet this is not what got my attention at all. I just see plucky little Fiona, driving her family toward the happiness it knows, down deep, that it wants. This involves returning to the island. That's also what this movie is about.
Oh, and I see the island, too. Fiona wouldn't make half the impression on me that she does, if she were lifting and exhorting everyone in the direction of -- a mountain, say. No; it's the rocky beach, so much like beaches I've walked on, eaten homemade sandwiches on (as does Fiona), and wrecks of boats I've poked around. It's looking through curtains at a far-off light, sleeping safe in grandparents' house--it's familiar, this Ireland. Maybe I'd like to visit it.
Maybe I just wish I could go to grandparents' house and be eight, again.
Tink is posting late on Sunday, but it's still Sunday! Back to regular weekly posts, now!
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