There is a lot to praise in That They May Face The Rising Sun: stunning scenery, great acting, beautiful score, but the presence of a strong plot, theme, or central relationship, one of which at least, is required to hold a great film together, was lacking. The married couple around whose lives and cottage the main action revolved, seemed to coexist largely on a diet of meaningful glances and melancholy embraces. Joe's (Barry Ward) depiction as a stoic Good Samaritan-friend, embalmer, driver, letter-writer to all, starved the actor of any emotional range, and the the action of any dramatic surprise. His wife (Anna Bederke) had little to do but smile serenely at her new, semi-cloistered, adopted world, like a novice nun stuck with her vows. Clearly Pat Collins placed most of his chips on mood and atmosphere, which for me, often echoed that doomed rural isolation and missed opportunity which The Ballroom of Romance did so well. I liked some set pieces, particularly the the wedding, where the close up of Brendan Conroy's lonely face tore at the heart. The wake (strangely, for its time, without a priest in sight) and laying out of Johnny's corpse, showed the single death is also a communal one. I loved Sean McGinley's performance, especially in that devastating scene where his eyes and voice convey the deep shame he feels for having left Ireland, only to end up cleaning the 'English jacks' in Fords.
The film succeeds in what it sets out to do; capture life in the ordinary moments of ordinary, often frustrated individuals, present it in significant, often striking fragments rather serve it up as a coherent narrative whole, a kind of style that Fellini perfected in the incomparable Amarcord.
The film succeeds in what it sets out to do; capture life in the ordinary moments of ordinary, often frustrated individuals, present it in significant, often striking fragments rather serve it up as a coherent narrative whole, a kind of style that Fellini perfected in the incomparable Amarcord.