Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone, although it's already the 18th here in Japan. This year I bought a bottle of Jameson and watched Darby O'Gill and the Little People and Mike Leigh's 1984 film Four Days in July, the latter of which I'd never seen before. It was surprisingly relaxing for a movie about the Troubles though there is an underlying tension throughout the picture.
It's set in Belfast and follows a young Protestant family and a young Catholic family. The women in both families are pregnant for the first time.
Most of the film consists of slices of life. We listen in on conversations between the couples and friends visiting. Stephen Rea has a small role as a window cleaner for the Catholic family. He stops work to chat with them a while.
All the time, I was listening for some reflection of political or religious partisanship in the dialogue. Anything of that sort, though, seems to be incidental as when the Catholic wife (Brid Brennan) sings a revolutionary song in bed as a lullaby for her husband (Des McAleer), successfully putting him to sleep.
The loyalty to both sides is there. The Protestant husband (Charles Lawson) is with the British security forces and he has a clear enough contempt for terrorists. But he seems more concerned with swapping old stories about drunken bets or trivia about Northern Ireland.
The dialogue feels so authentic, it really felt like I was just hanging out with all these nice folks. Surely they needn't start killing each other.
Four Days in July is available on The Criterion Channel.
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