‘That They May Face The Rising Sun’: London Review

Dir: Pat Collins. Ireland/UK. 2023. 111mins

That They May Face The Rising Sun is a lyrical, loving celebration of the everyday. Pat Collins’ sympathetic handling of John McGahern’s final novel, published in 2002, revels in the simple things that give life meaning. The story of a couple finding their best life in the rural Ireland of the 1980s is beautifully realised and quietly beguiling. A world premiere at London should attract theatrical interest for an Irish feature that shares some of the sensitive qualities of Colm Bairead’s The Quiet Girl (2022).

The sense of tranquility is palpable, and the film almost seems designed to lower your blood pressure.

Joe (Barry Ward) and Kate (Anna Bederke) have found the good life in a corner of Ireland where Joe grew up. Five years after their return from London, they have a contentment that feels very much like happiness. He writes, she is a photographer and artist who retains a half ownership in a London gallery. Creative days mingle with tending to the bee hives, growing food in their raised beds and keeping open house for any neighbour who feels inclined to drop by for a gossip, a mug of tea or a word of advice. 

The couple have found the time to stop and stare. They can feel the sun on their face, breathe the scented air and appreciate everything around them. Collins and cinematographer Richard Kendrick provide a clear sense of what is so special about the landscape. Hedgerows stretch along the side of roads, a house seems under the thumb of nature as it cowers beneath hanging trees and spreading shrubs. Birdsong fills the soundtrack and the delicate piano score from Irene and Linda Buckley adds a mournful note. The sense of tranquility is palpable, and the film almost seems designed to lower your blood pressure.

There is no obvious serpent in this Eden but, as we witness the changing seasons and the interactions between Joe, Kate and the locals, there are undercurrents of conflict. People here have known hardship and poverty. Joe and Kate look upon their neighbours with a kind of benevolent indulgence; in turn, some of the locals regard them with fond bemusement. The prickly Patrick (Lalor Roddy) belittles their love of the quiet rural life and seems to resent the pleasure they take in the simple things. There is a sense, too, that Joe and Kate have swum against the tide. This is a place where generations have moved away to the city and a way of life once dominant is slipping away. Kate learns disappearing skills of weaving and separating wool before the past is lost to nostalgia.

Director and co-writer Pat Collins has made a number of specialist documentaries expressing an appreciation of craft, creativity and folklore, including John McGahern: A Private World (2005) and Henry Glassie: Field Work (2019). He is perfectly in tune with McGahern’s world, offering a portrait of a community that survives by the sweat of its own labour. We witness the annual harvest, the slow, never-ending construction of a new building; the circle of life is marked in a joyous autumnal marriage, hopes and fears for an unknown future and the sting of inevitable deaths.

The expert cast do justice to their characters. Ward’s Joe is an affable, understanding figure conveying the sense of a good man generously sharing his time and emotions. His observations of neighbours and perfect days feed into his writing, providing a voice-over narration that closely links the film to the text of the John McGahern novel and the autobiographical elements it contains. Kate has less screen time but Bederke invests her with a sense of certainty about what she wants and where she wants to be.

A gallery of accomplished Irish character actors (Ruth McCabe, Sean McGinley etc) vividly etch the people who become indispensable to Joe and Kate’s lives. Phillip Dolan makes a sympathetic figure of farmer Jamesie and Roddy is especially notable as Patrick, capturing the complex, bittersweet emotions of a man unsettled by the changing world that is swirling around him.