An Cailleach Bhéarra 2007
An Cailleach Bhéarra 2007
Producer - Louise Curran, Metropolitan Films
Director/Writer/Editor - Naomi Wilson
Director of Photography - Brian Doyle
Cast - Paddy Bourke, Robyn Gutteridge
Voice Over - Biddie Hedderman
Sound & Music - Brian Doyle
Music Vocals - Deirdre Cunningham
Animation Assistants - Krys Pomeroy,
Theresa Hartigan, Fintan Ryan, Neil Ryan
Synopsis:
... but Cailleach Bheurr was dependent on this one thing... every one hundred years she must return to the water,for as soon as ever she bathed herself, her youth was renewed and she became again a young girl...
Background:
AN CAILLEACH BHEARRA or the old woman of Beara is based on the mythical figure of the cailleach in celtic folk-lore. She is the otherworld female, described as 'the divine hag of the pagan celts' and has associations with the landscape, changing seasons, winter storms and wild sea. She also has associations of nurturing as a kind of mother earth and as sovereignty queen. She becomes displaced by patriarchal christian culture which demonizes her and represents her as a witch. The film combines two short tales involving the character of the cailleach, running them together and reinterpreting the stories in a playful modern context.
Technique:
AN CAILLEACH BHEARRA uses pixilation and time lapse techniques with puppets and real people filmed in the landscape. Because the themes of time and cycles of nature running through the film, it seemed appropriate to use time lapse stop motion techniques to alter our sense of time passing. Also the film is treated to look like old film-stock with scratches and jitters to position the film as being from a by-gone era or give it a more time-less quality. The priest is played by a real person pixilated and sped up in his motion, concerned only with quantification and measurement. He is dressed in the old victorian cossack to emphasize his position of authority. The cailleach is represented by a large scale puppet, dwarfing the priest and hiding out in a ruined church building like a wild animal biding her time before being called into action. The set with a fake fireplace was designed and built in an old shed and props such as bones were cast in plaster. The puppet heads and hands were made in clay and cast in fiberglass resin and latex rubber.
The film is designed to be dense and viewed more than once as it has many layers of meaning which may or may not be fully read on first viewing; it is a poetic treatment of an ancient tale, introducing elements of contemporary life juxtaposed against the archetypal language of mythology. For example the puppet has eyes made to look like amber, a substance that is many millions of years old, comes from trees and can be washed up from the ocean bed onto the beach. This suggests the possibility of a large scale time cycle when her eyes make it back to the water and from which she is reborn. She is painted blue, referring both to wode which celtic warriors painted themselves with and also to descriptions of the cailleach as having a blue-black face and being a winter goddess or supernatural creature. She wears a shell earring and has seashells for fingernails connecting her with the sea; her hair is a mixture of seaweed, grass and flowers and she wears a celtic broach.
The puppet was filmed out in the landscape, in woods, on cliffs and back roads in West Clare, and then the people operating and moving her were painted out in AfterEffects computer programme at the post production stage. Time lapse photography was added as layers in AfterEffects, and images such as motorways and cars were superimposed on top of certain imagery. References are made to deforestation and the extinction of animals due to man's activities.
The film production involved local people in acting, voice over, singing, operating the puppets and making props, and includes many beautiful locations on the Loop Head peninsula.
Format:
Beta SP PAL
Aspect ratio: 16:9 letterbox
Colour
Stereo Sound
R/T 8 mins
Festival History:
SPECIAL MENTION at the Cork Film Festival, October 2007.
"Animator Naomi Wilson's original vision and playful inventiveness
enlivens this retelling of a traditional Irish legend with striking images
that will remain with us for a long time to come."
Click on the image to see stills