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Archive for May, 2005

More Irish than the Irish themselves

Around the time of the citizenship referendum I warned of the unforeseen consequences of messing around with something as fundamental as citizenship. Sarah Carey writing in this week’s Sunday Times describes how she became victim to one of these unforeseen consequences when she tried to get a passport for her baby:

I queued for the birth certificate, wrote the cheque, sent the application off, sat back and waited. Then the phone rang. On a Saturday. A very nice lady from the Passport Office said she was terribly sorry but my son had not established his entitlement to Irish citizenship.

I was perplexed. Of course he was Irish, he was born here. Wasn’t that enough? Not any more. Since January 1 the citizenship referendum we approved last June has taken effect. It means that people born in Ireland aren’t automatically Irish anymore. Now you have to establish that you’re Irish through your parents.

“But I thought that was only for foreigners,” I told the lady. “That’s what everyone thought,” she agreed. “No one realised it would affect Irish babies too.”

So far, so predictable. This is a consequence I had foreseen. But then it gets interesting:

An English couple living in Dublin for nearly 15 years sent off a passport application for their child, knowing there would be an issue, but at a loss as to how to resolve it given the absence of any reference on the form to the new law. They presumed they would need to provide proof of residency.

Duly, they received the phone call from the passport office. But it turns out their son is entitled to Irish citizenship . . . because they are British. Apparently, if one parent is British — irrespective of whether they are from Norwich or Northern Ireland — the child is entitled to Irish citizenship.

Brilliant. Our incompetent lawmakers have made the citizens of perfidious Albion more Irish then the natives.

So it’s true. Supporters of the referendum aren’t racist at all. The refererendum was a magnanimous gesture to the ‘auld enemy’. Let bygones be bygones. Forgive and forget. No more talk of 800 years of oppression. Ye’re one of us now.

Either that or we’re sinking to new depths in our search for a half-decent international soccer team.

Mark Waters marked time at 10:15 am on May 31st, 2005 | 9 comments .

There is always room

Hotel Rwanda

My rating: 4 out of 5

With some fine performances, a strong script, and excellent direction this movie makes a powerful statement. It teaches us many lessons but if you learn just one it should be this: there is always room.

Mark Waters marked time at 3:54 pm on May 16th, 2005 | Add a comment .

Antony and the Johnsons - I am a Bird Now

My rating: 4 out of 5

It’s already been hyped as the album of the year and the hype is justified. Antony’s voice has been compared to Nina Simone and there are similiarities but the sensibility is totally different. Imagine Nina singing the Velvet Underground’s third album somewhere other than a closet and you’ll get an idea. It’s been compared to Jeff Buckley as well, a comparison that lowers the standing of Buckley, showing up the self-indulgent narcissism that marred much of his work. No danger of that with Antony. His voice seems to act as a channel for something from another world, something bigger than himself.

I am a Bird Now is a homage to the drag queen sub-culture of New York which was devastated by AIDS in the eighties. If that sounds depressing then it’s not. The songs are more about redemption than loss, celebrating the possibilities of life rather than dwelling on the finality of death. A work of beauty.

Mark Waters marked time at 12:28 pm on May 9th, 2005 | 2 comments .

Blessed are the poor in judgement for theirs is the…

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

My rating: 1 out of 5

I was dubious about Kingdom of Heaven from the start but then I read some reviews that suggested it might have more going for it than I imagined - some insights into the Christian/Muslim conflict, for example, or failing that, an entertaining storyline. I should have stuck with my initial instincts.

This film is a mess. It’s film-making by numbers. The plot is on auto-pilot with no sense of craft and no idea of pace or character development. The characters are barely sketched - the writer assumes the audience will fill in the blanks and I suppose it’s not difficult for us since we’ve seen it all before. The dialogue is mostly exposition and - as seems to be increasingly the case with these Hollywood epics - the script owes less to the historical events it purports to portray and more to the myth of the American dream of the self-made man, the primacy of the individual, and self-help book philosophy: You can be whatever you want to be if you believe in it strong enough. And the good guy always gets the girl in the end.

I found the whole thing very tedious and at over two-and-a-half hours, just too long. The two young lads in front of me were sleeping like babies after half an hour despite being tanked-up on super-sized cokes and popcorn. The most entertaining part of the movie for me was the inquisitive child behind me who kept pestering his mother with questions: “Why is the king wearing a mask?” “Because he is a leper. Keep quiet. People are trying to watch the film.” “How is the king a leopard?”

I give it 1 star for the performances of Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson and Dave Thewlis who managed to make something out of their roles with very little help from the script. As usual Treasa disagrees with me but she’s in good company.

Mark Waters marked time at 9:31 am on May 9th, 2005 | 1 comment .