urgh, every movie ever made about Ireland sucks ass. They're either beedahokey shite with leprechauns and a thatched cottages and Maureen O'Hara in them or they're misery-porn or they're excessively cutsey bullshit which makes everyone here look like a mindless cunt.
Damn you all for having decent films made about your countries!
Agree - I nearly made a list including Derby O'Gill and the Little People, Leprechaun, Leprechaun II and Into the West (*gags*) but then I was worried everyone but you and Hick (and maybe Drifter) would take me seriously.
I love Maureen O'Hara too, but the movies she starred in about Ireland weren't really all that definative of anything except the universally accepted myths about Ireland.
Angela's Ashes, My Left Foot, and the Magdalene Sister's are all part of that Misery-Porn genre in it's Irish form. While they do tell interesting stories none of them could be said to be quintissentially definative of Ireland, and in my view they've contributed to a lot of misunderstandings about this country around the world. There's no doubt those movies needed to be made, but in the absence of anything to counterbalance them and fill out the picture of Ireland I feel like they distort somewhat.
That gets a giant, fat, erect and straining 'agree' from me.
The Celts I admit to being unfamiliar with...
Me either - I only see TV series of that name on IMDB. Nudie - enlighten us.
Waking Ned Devine doesn't cut it IMO, it's just so "Oirish" and cutsey, and it really would have people believe we're all a bunch of bog-trotting eejits.
The Quiet Man is in most respects a great movie, and it's unusual in that it bucks a lot of the clichés, but if I'm honest whenever I watch it I can't help feeling that it could have been set anywhere in Europe that happened to be remote, sparsely populated and culturally traditional. I also feel like it's about how incredible the performances in it are, rather than saying much about Ireland.
More agreement.
The only decent movie I've seen about Ireland that I had few reservations about was The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Again though that's mining a cultural and historic seam which is important and needs to be explored but which I feel has been explored lots already where a vast field of other stories about Ireland remain untold and unexplored to the detriment of people's understanding of what this country is actually like. I used to live in the part of the country The Wind that Shakes the Barley is set in so I can vouch for much of its veracity too.
It's worth a watch and Loach did way better than I thought he would.
Perhaps I was exaggerating when I said every movie made about this country sucks ass, but it's not far off true nonetheless.
Movies made
about Ireland are rarely Irish though.
Movies made in Ireland by Irish filmmakers are maybe more the thing the OP is looking for.
Look for some of Bredan Gleeson's Irish films. I Went Down is very good, for example. Also, Neil Jordan has made a few good'uns (and some not so good'uns - but ignore them). Breakfast on Pluto, for example, is worth a watch.
Are they quintessentially Irish? I don't know - I'm not sure I believe that exists, there are too many Irelands (none of them ever make it to Hollywood though, even though there is a multitude of Irish talent there).