Black '47

Excellent, thought provoking film and actually very well balanced.

Awful! Bad acting, casting of an Australian as the main character when it's about a big part of Irish history, implausible moments, and an all-round mockery of the greatest tragedy in Irish history. Shameful!

Not really the Famine film we were promised, but still a decent thriller

A mother's heart was marble-clad, her eye was fierce and wild,/A hungry Demon lurked therein, while gazing on her child./The mother-love was warm and true; the Want was long withstood -/Strength failed at last; she gorged the flesh - the offspring of her blood.

• Anonymous; "Thanatos, 1849"

I'm not going to lie – I fully expected to hate Black '47. The trailer was awful, making it look like a generic action flick; several colleagues saw the screening at ADIFF earlier in the year and were decidedly unimpressed; I thought most of the film was in English, which rubbed me up the wrong way altogether. Mainly though, I was just fulfilling my God-given right as an Irish person – being cankerous for no earthly reason whatsoever. However, because I was expecting to hate it, when I discovered, much to my chagrin, that it's actually quite good, it led to me thoroughly enjoying it. Colour me humbled. Easily the most hyped and anticipated Irish film of the last decade or so, Black '47 is proudly advertised as the "first film about the Great Famine". And were this true, it would undoubtedly occupy a canonical place in Irish artistic output in general, and Irish cinema in specific. However, there is one vital factor that everyone really needs to know before seeing it – it isn't the first film about the Famine. It's the first film set during the Famine, but it isn't about the Famine. This is a genre film, a pseudo-western revenge thriller set against the backdrop of the Famine. The Famine is not the film's central theme, nor does it attempt to engage with it on a national scale. If you accept that, and don't go in expecting to see Cecil Woodham-Smith's The Great Hunger (1991) transposed to the screen, there's actually quite a lot here to admire.

As with many genre films, the plot is simplicity itself. It is winter 1847 in Connemara, two years since Phytophthora infestans caused...

An exploration of a gruelling moment in Irish history, ‘Black ‘47’ toys with notions of ethics in an amoral world, questioning the very existence of redemption and showing the guy on the white horse as a reluctant, mournful participant in a (possibly) never-ending cycle of violence.

• Jake Watt

Read Jake's full article... https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-black-47-a-bleak-historical-revenge-western

Click here for a video version of this review: https://youtu.be/Geuu7kVab2k

Anyone who knows me will know that I'm fan of dark and dreary movies and the Netflix movie Black 47 certainly meets this description.

In 1847, when Ireland is in the grip of the Great Famine that has ravaged the country for two long years, Feeney, a hardened Irish Ranger who has been fighting for the British Army abroad, returns home to reunite with his estranged family, only to discover the cruelest reality, a black land where death reigns.

I love a good revenge film and this delivers on its promise of a cold hard story. This is a real solid film that had me gripped right from the get-go. James Frecheville who plays Feeney is dead eyed and terrifying as he slowly tracks down those that have done wrong to his family, and you can't help but cheer him on as the a-hole English soldiers chase him. Hugo Weaving is great as Hannah, the former soldier tasked with helping the English chase Feeney, and the cat and mouse game that ensues really pulled me in. The conflict that Hannah has plays well into the story, and his "in it for his own reasons" angle adds a good "will he or won't he" aspect to the events of the film.

The film makers do an excellent job of showing just how hard and awful things were during the Irish famine, and how cheap life was. There is a courthouse scene where someone is sentenced to hard labour in Tasmania, half a world away for the crime of stealing a sheep to feed his family. In fact that mention of Tasmania, and the film as a whole reminded me a lot of the absolutely brilliant film The Nightingale, that we watched last year. If you enjoyed The Nightingale then this too will be right up your alley.

So, if you're looking for a bleak and hopeless film with a huge grey zone between good guys and bad guys, Black 47 will be a worthy addition to your watchlist.