My Beamish Boy.
Mike Hannon. 2009.
This short (25
min) documentary focuses on the Cork Beamish brewery that closed in 2009. Its
main method of representation is through interviews with former employees along
with archive photographs for illustration. This limited pallette gives the film
a strong focus which works because of its lenght but would feel insufficient if
it were a feature lenght film. That the interviews were beautifully shot is no
little help, it is also edited to stick strongly to a focused narrative. The
different parts of the seperate interviews are edited togheter according to
content and all have similitude due to the use of location and natural
lighting. The film is a eulogy of sorts; events, objects and people are spoken
of in the pastense, the old images and the meloncholic music used in the film reaffirms
this sense of loss. There are no issues of representation in this film, all are
agreed on the content, the workplace that brought them all togheter. The
narrative arc is presented by going further back into the history of the
brewery before being led back into the more recent past but all throughout the
film the focus is maintained by all the different interviews staying with a
specific topic. The photos are used alongside the interviews as reinforcement
for the points being made, but because there is no argument put forward it
presents more like an illustration of the content being disclosed. It is not
until near the end of the film that the limited visual horizons become apparent,
the closing montage then fittingly shows the present day brewery for the first
time. Due to the limited range of content thus far the shots of the brewery
seem visually inconsistent to the rest of the film but overall it manages to
keep a stylistically balanced tone throughout. This is done by keeping the interview
clips to similar lenghts, framing the interviewees in a similar fashion,
keeping the narrative on a tight leash and using music that fits the film stylistically.
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