That They May Face the Rising Sun is released in Irish cinemas today. The closing gala film of the recent Dublin International Film Festival (and subsequent winner of Best Irish Film) in addition to being crowned Best Film at the 2024 Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs) last week gets its long-anticipated nationwide Irish release.
Based on the novel by Booker Prize nominee John McGahern, acclaimed director Pat Collins has such intricate command over the material in a manner that seems completely effortless and yet highly coordinated at the same time. As in the novel, the film follows Joe and Kate Ruttledge who have returned from London to live and work among the small, close-knit community near to where Joe grew up in rural Ireland. What the film explores is the the perceived banality of everyday life that is exposed as the most sacred of moments.
This film lives in the moments of every day life, zooming in on a rural community to a microscopic point where you can see that the everyday is drama. Time ticks on everyday, creeping along quietly but it is only when shown as a poetic, sweeping thread that the true drama of every day life unfolds. There is a particular scene where the two characters take over an embalming of a dearly departed neighbour, and as off-putting as that is, it is one of the most soothing and intimate moments in the entire film that holds up a candle to true community not as lip service but as the continuation and routineness of the everyday.
The depiction of many isolated and eccentric characters in McGahern’s novel literally jump off the page and their uniqueness is replicated extraordinarily well through the best of Irish acting talent on the screen. It serves as a reminder to embrace the everyday, because the rising sun does. People commend films for being life affirming, but after they see That They May Face the Rising Sun, this is much more aptly defined as moment affirming.
Book tickets in the UK here
Book tickets in Ireland here
FILM CREDITS
- Director: Pat Collins
- Actors: Barry Ward, Anna Bederke, Lalor Roddy, Sean McGinley, Ruth McCabe
- Producer: Tina O’Reilly, Brendan Byrne
- Writer: Éamon Little, Pat Collins
FILM FOR THOUGHT 