A Film From My Parish: Six Farms (review for Paste)

A Film From My Parish: Six Farms is over nearly before you finish reading the title, but what a fun ride it is. The seven-minute documentary exclusively uses stop-motion photography and animation (no video at all) to capture, condense, and illustrate director Tony Donoghue’s interviews with elderly farmers on six farms near his home. The film crackles with an almost manic nervous energy that is completely unexpected for a celebration of rural Irish life. Donoghue (the most entertaining and winning of all the directors I’ve met thus far) explained to me that he’d seen so many scenes of wind rippling through crops in the Irish countryside with harp music playing that he wanted to get as far away from that feel as possible (well, that was the gist of what he said — there were a few choice words peppered throughout). And what do you know, it really works — Donoghue’s old avant-garde filmmaking days serve him well. By the way, Donoghue is alo blogging about the Sundance experience here.