Having read some rave reviews and comments on this film, I actually bought the DVD. What a disappointment. Has everyone been watching the same film. Nothing happens. A young traveler girl wanders from scene to scene, the non-narrative stretched to near breaking point. If anything, the style and technique are lifted straight from the Dardenne brothers film Rosetta, albeit without the gripping story and plot. What we have here is a con job, mutton dressed as lamb. This slight drama masquerades as social comment, but there is an uneasy feeling as you watch it that a middle-class professional fashion photographer could be accused of exploiting the travelers. I can only deduce that it appeals to other middle class liberals who want to get down with the tinkers, but who wouldn't lift a finger or inquire further on their behalf. Above all, it's boring. High point the mother's performance, low point the long shots where nothing happens. The piano music at the end says it all. Warning: Brendan Gleeson is not in this film.

A documentary-style snapshot of the life of a Traveller family in the docks area of Dublin. (Travellers are the Irish equivalent of Roma gypsies, but those two groups have entirely different histories.) A resilient mother and her ten children occupy trailers, or caravans as the Brits call them, on land owned by the local council. The film primarily follows Winnie, a ten year daughter, but the mother also plays an important role as she fights eviction notices and tries to improve the live of her children. Issues of discrimination, difficulties with the authorities and a social security net that, while well intentioned, can do little for the family are topics that permeate the film. Members of the family and their neighbors play themselves, while actors take up non-Traveller roles. The director should be commended for integrating professionals and non-professionals into a seamless whole.

Let me say, straight away, that I am always suspicious of films that set themselves among the most under-privileged. There seems, for the most part some element of directors gazing down with virtuous intent from a great height onto these poor sods.Pavee Lackeen suffers less than most from this syndrome, but it falls into the trap of thinking that a slice of life is the same thing as a slice of cinema. It isn't.Two things stick out like a sore thumb in this film. The first is that it has no dramatic structure. We join the family of travellers on whom it focuses at, apparently, some random moment, some things happen, and then we leave them at another apparently equally random moment. On the way, have we seen character development? No. Have we been given any insight into the human psyche? No.What we have had is a glimpse into the life of a young traveller girl, who is full of fun and life, and has lots of problems. We are sorry for her (we were probably that within five minutes of the start). We have learnt a few things about the way that travellers live in outer Dublin - but less than we might have by reading a well-written newspaper article.At the screening I attended, the director, a nice man and former still photographer, declared himself to be in the line of film-making that came from Alan Clarke and early Ken Loach - that later Loach films, he thought, were too contrived. Hmmm. Yes. That says it all.Here we have a naive belief that to film 'reality' without interference is art if that reality features the under-privileged. It isn't.The director pointed out that it was shot on a minuscule budget (£320,000) - and, in fairness, he wasn't saying that this meant we had to make allowances.It would be my belief that one of the most important things in a film is what is taken out. I don't mean edited. I mean that as much of what we see must be expressive and not confuse the viewer as to what each shot is about. Here, everything is cluttered and unstructured. I am not looking for 'beautiful squalor', but I am looking for some obvious attempt by the filmmakers to direct my eyes in a particular direction. I don't see it.The 'acting' by these mainly non-professionals is fine. The archetypes created as characters are fine. But there is no structure and no visual strategy... that is, until the last shot, when the camera which has been jiggling about like a yo-yo for the rest of the film, is allowed to come to rest and in a single shot, say more about the plight of the characters than the previous 90 minutes - and for the first time, it uses non-diegetic music!! Great!

I saw a screening of the film at the DGA on Oct. 28th followed by a Q&A with director Perry Ogden. The film is shot documentary style with real people rather than actors and while it is scripted, there is a lot of improvisation and "real life" activity going on. The girl who is the focal point of the movie is terrific and it is amazing how matter-of-factly she goes about her daily life in a trailer with no running water. To his credit, director Perry Ogden does not delve into the rich versus poor clichés, but presents a very straightforward look at life for a family on the edge of the social system in modern Ireland. The film won top honors at the Galway Film Festival and has been well-received at other festivals as well.