[REL] An Cailín Ciúin (2022) [Ireland]

[Night457]

Terrific movie, thank you!

It has been noted that this takes place in 1981, but I could not understand how a viewer could figure that out so precisely. Maybe that was covered in the English mumbled dialog. There are no mobile phones, anyway.

BTW, can somebody explain why some directors prefer to shoot narrow-screen movies today?

An online search showed me that critics were interested in the narrow Academy aspect ratio used in the film. Watching it, I noticed that many of the scenes were indoors in a narrow space, sometimes framed through doorways. A wider image would not have expanded the sides of the image, it would have just shortened the height of the space inhabited by the characters. Here are a few online quotes on the narrow image, including a VERY relevant justification for it by the director.

Spoiler: 1 Kate McCullough, among the best Irish cinematographers of her generation, risks jarringly dramatic contrasts between light and shade in her academy-ratio images (it is time for a treatise on why that narrow frame is so in fashion again). 2 Shot in a 4:3 “Academy” aspect ratio, the squared-off framing and boxed-in quality of the imagery shows us the limits of a child’s world. Cáit can roam, but the spaces she moves through are always bordered by darkness. There is some nostalgia in the framing of the film, but there’s also a kind of lived-in realism. This is the visual language of memories. You watch a recording of that time and it’s in the same aspect ratio, on video cassette or cine film. The mind’s eye recalls lives and experience of this era as a series of these squares. 3 The film is shot in the classic Academy-format and despite Bairéads wonderful use of this aspect ratio, one wishes for the shy and introverted 9 years old girl a temporary escape into dreams in Cinema scope. 4 Shooting in full-frame Academy ratio, director of photography Kate McCullough captures Cáit moving between pale yellow doorways, squaring the difference between this place, her home, and the discomfort that lies in between. 5 Director Colm Bairéad: "I’m very interested in the question of point of view in film, and this film is very much a first-person narrative. We were trying to mirror Foster, and Foster is written in first person; that’s one of the reasons Foster feels very cinematic, you’re literally in this girl’s shoes the whole time. Our biggest question was, how do we transpose that to the language of film? Kate used the Academy ratio; it’s a narrower frame. It is an interesting way of holding this one character, it gives a first-person approach, but in this case, it’s a first-person narrative about a person who doesn’t understand the world yet. It is also a great frame to situate the audience in this time in our past." ************** Quote sources: 1 = https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film ... -1.4874638 2 = https://dublininquirer.com/2022/05/18/a ... %20realism. 3 = https://shomingekiblog.blogspot.com/202 ... rl-by.html 4 = https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/ ... ly-outcast 5 = http://www.movies.ie/an-cailin-ciuin-in ... m-bairead/

[mimzy]

Thanks Night for this great research! It all makes perfect sense. Now I wonder why they make those extra wide 2.35:1 movies 16:9 is IMO the most optimal format for the eyes.

[Night457]

Now I wonder why they make those extra wide 2.35:1 movies 16:9 is IMO the most optimal format for the eyes.

For Cinemascope movies seen in the theater, I had to sit toward the back so I could see all the image and didn't have to swivel my head back and forth like watching a tennis match! (Back when I went to the theater, that is.) Interesting trivia: the Cinerama version of "How the West Was Won" (1962) was 2.59, but supposedly Warner Brothers later rereleased it in an insane 2.89 ratio!

I don't know why 16:9 (1.78) was chosen for widescreen TVs when the two most common cinema widescreen options were American 1.85 and European 1.66, but it is a comfortable intermediate between Academy 1.37 and Cinemascope 2.35.

Personally I like 1.66. I looked more closely at such things when I found out it was preferred for many (not all) of their own films by directors like Stanley Kubrick and David Cronenberg. Since even the boring Kubrick films LOOK fantastic, I had to take that seriously. I decided I liked it too.

[ghost]

I just wanted to let you know that I replaced my web-dl with a rip from the Blu-Ray. Dolby Surround 5.1 sound and seperate English subtitles:
https://www.first-loves.com/forums/view ... 224#p94224

[Night457]

I just wanted to let you know that I replaced my web-dl with a rip from the Blu-Ray.

YAY! And this movie, only 3 FLM months old, I have actually WATCHED rather than leave it on my "To Watch" list like most everything else. I can easily watch it again.

I particularly appreciate your informing us of the replacement, ghost ... so I don't try to reshare it a year from now and wonder why the ed2k hash and the file size are different from what I have! I'll get it now!

[pillowbaker]

Thanks for the upgrade, ghost! I still have to watch it, but I do look forward to it.

[c4po]

I just watched this movie and have to comment, because it really is an excellent movie. Go watch it, if you haven't.

[Nasuada]

YAY! And this movie, only 3 FLM months old, I have actually WATCHED rather than leave it on my "To Watch" list like most everything else. I can easily watch it again.

Same thing is happen to me as I seen it in Feb. At the end of the Movie Festival I saw a second screening (because of Corona they show some of the winning movies again) and I enjoy it as the first time. Slowly we have the end of the year and it's still my most impressive Movie who I have seen this year.

[ghost]

I have actually WATCHED rather than leave it on my "To Watch" list like most everything else.

Yeah, I really watched it the same day I downloaded it. An exellent movie!

[Night457]

thanks you ghost for the movie but i think it need an external subtitles where they are speaking in English
I couldn't hear them well

Yes. Me too. Thanks God, there isn't much English in the movie.

I know from experience that I have trouble with Irish English whether it is quiet or not. I am confident that a SDH track will eventually appear.

and

While Curzon provides English subtitles for the Gaelic dialect, there aren't any subs for spoken English. Words are often hard to make out, which necessitate turning the volume way up. Curzon should have included auto-generated subs and an additional subtitle track that transcribes all dialogue.

(The reviewer gave high marks to both the movie and the disc:
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Quie ... 45/#Review)

It was time for me to look again. I did not find a specifically SDH track, but I DID find subtitles that were the COMPLETE DIALOG, both the Gaelic translated to English AND the English itself!! I resynced it to ghost's file and did some slight editing so that people's names had the proper Gaelic accented vowels, like ghost's original subtitles do. I think I got them all.

COMPLETE DIALOG for the film, English subtitles:

An Cailín Ciúin - The Quiet Girl (2022).1080p.5.1 ENGLISH - COMPLETE.zip