A big catchBy John DeSando, "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Eliot caught the melancholy conjunction of romance and reality when the world drowns our dreams with the quotidian. Neil Jordan, no stranger to strange worlds as his brilliant Crying Game showed, creates a story of an Irish fisher man, Syracuse (Colin Farrell), and his catch of the day, literally, Ondine (Alicia Bachleda), whom he and his wheel-chaired young daughter Annie (Alison Barry) believe to be a sea maiden, selkies as the Scots would describe such mythical beings, who look like seals in the water but take human form on land.
Regardless of who Ondine is and from whom she is running, she brings luck to this handsome bad-boy, if not a body to make even a former miscreant mend his ways. Not for nothing has the small Irish village called him "Circus" over the years.
Jordan's ability to mix reality and fantasy is never better displayed than when the town adjusts to Syracuse's "water baby," as his ex-wife calls her, and the phenomenal catches he's now bringing back. Although no magic can make Annie better, she is a better girl for being inspired by Ondine's similarity to a selkie and the gentle, caring nature of the maiden.
Jordan is helped by Christopher Doyle's moody cinematography, a combination of misty mystery and robust water movement. Kjartan Sveinsson supplies a score that matches the beauty and uncertainty. Both cinematographer and music man contribute to the luxuriously green environment where tales are spun daily to comfort the sick and accompany the lonely.
Syracuse early on asks Annie if she has seen "anything strange and wonderful." Well, Annie can respond only later, as she uncovers his secret guest in his mom's old cottage, that things are getting "curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland and Snow White, fixing up a cottage, for that matter, would have approved.
Syracuse: "She sings to the fishes and he catches them."
John DeSando co-hosts It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee for WCBE 90.5. The shows can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com