Maeve [Blu-ray] [2021]

"Men's relationship to women is just like England's relationship to Ireland. You're in possession of us. You occupy us like an army"It's the generally accepted view that the British film industry was in the doldrums in the 1980s but I think that verdict needs to be tempered by the fact that this period saw a time of great artistic creativity from young independent and political filmmakers (Richard Woolley immediately springs to mind), which makes the fact that the work which they contributed in this period is now so scarce and overlooked all the more frustrating. When you stumble upon such work however, it makes it all the more rewarding to the viewer. Maeve, directed by Pat Murphy and funded by a grant from the BFI, is one such film.Simply put, the film tells the story of Maeve Sweeney (Mary Jackson) a young Irishwoman who, having spent some time in the relative peace of London, now returns home to the Troubles-stricken Belfast. Returning to her family home and her old haunts, stimulates in Maeve memories of her childhood and adolescence and forces her to question herself, her politics and her identity. However, it's this latter analysis that makes Maeve such an intriguing prospect, as Murphy approaches ideologies such as feminism and republicanism in an experimental and reflective film style, that is perhaps best evinced by the narrative's many unheralded temporal shifts and Murphy's decision to allow a character like Maeve's despondent father (Mark Mulholland) to deliver anecdotes almost directly to camera, as if the audience itself were a complicit character within the film.What is especially remarkable about Maeve is that it is a film that addresses the political situation in the north of Ireland from a woman's point of view. Granted, there are many other films that explore the Troubles and choose to place a woman at their centre, but they are invariably tales about a woman without man, grieving for their significant loved ones lost to the cause, incarceration or death, or tales of women simply possessing enough practical common sense (of the stereotypically feminine or matriarchal no-nonsense variety) to take a stand against the man-made violence they see around them, whereas Maeve speaks to a much more interesting feminist perspective hinted at in the quote I placed at the top of this review; namely that once the war is over, no matter what side has 'won', nothing will have changed for women if their menfolk still expect them to be wives and mothers only. Incarceration does feature in Maeve - her father was falsely imprisoned which goes some way to explain his detached nature - but both Maeve and her resilient mother's (played by Trudy Kelly) reaction to it is anger at the general consensus that womenfolk should simply accept this situation (along with the acceptance that informing on the real perpetrators is against the code) and that Maeve's leaving of such a committed nationalist community and way of life for bohemian London (and, in general England, the enemy) is considered as some kind of treasonable act or of having ideas above your station and class (even by her republican boyfriend, played by John Keegan). Where Murphy's film is bold and still incredibly refreshing is in its defiant challenging of Irish gender stereotypes and imagery.Visually, the film is very arresting too. Murphy delivers a series of authentic images of Troubles-era Belfast, but shot through them is a very artistic, somewhat surreal eye. This is especially pleasing as, the thought of tanks and armed soldiers strolling through such recognisably everyday streets will always feel surreal for British viewers. Thus, when Maeve and her younger sister Roisin (the ever-superb Bríd Brennan, refreshingly carefree here after her role in the Billy plays) are forced to hop on the spot for two rifle-toting soldiers whilst children play on the swings just yards away, or when the younger Maeve watches as her father painstakingly unloads his van of several television sets in the pouring rain, only to be instructed to place them all back in by a soldier the moment the last one touches the tarmac, your appreciation of the reality of this situation is accompanied by the invitation to embrace just how stupid it all is/was. A later sequence, almost dreamlike in its imagery, sees Maeve and Roisin heading for a night on the town. After passing through the checkpoint where their bags are inspected by the RUC, they immediately take in the sight of a bare-arsed squaddie giving a bored-looking local girl a knee-trembler in a shop doorway. It's scenes like this that I know will linger long in my memory.Much of Maeve's theoretical debates stem from scenes shared between her and her boyfriend/ex boyfriend, Liam. Here, through her leading lady, Murphy attempts to challenge the notion of a paternal nationalism and demand a place for feminism. Tellingly, the film pinpoints the distance between the characters; Maeve looks to the future, whilst Liam only ever to the past. When he argues that the past is important enough to oblige us with a way of understanding the present, Maeve is quick to remove him of his - and republicanism and the patriarchy's - ignorance; "You're talking about a false memory... the way you want to remember excludes me. I get remembered out of existence." Taking this quote in the context of Murphy's subsequent career as a filmmaker - which includes films like Anne Devlin, which approaches the 1803 Irish revolt from the experience of a female republican, and Nora, the James Joyce biopic told from the POV of his wife and muse, Nora Barnacle - I'd say that Murphy was doing her best to place women back into the picture.

Good film, service, very good.

A beautiful, intelligent and moving film.

Dreadful. The trailer was the best bit. Didn't even watch to the end..