Day 49: The Field

Happy birthday, Simon! I’m sure there is no greater present than the knowledge that I watched your pick on this day.

Bull McCabe (Richard Harris) has spent his life caring for a field and he wants to keep it in the family to pass on to his son, Tadgh (Sean Bean). However, the owner wants to sell and she’s not particularly keen on Bull owning it so she sets the minimum price at £100 (which she thinks he will never be able to get together) and waits for it to pass on to someone else. That someone else wouldn’t exist normally because nobody in that little village would dare go against Bull but along comes an American with no consideration for village folk and their love of land and he tries to buy it out from under him. Bull and that field cannot be separated so he takes drastic measures to ensure it stays with him.

At the start of the film you see father and son working hard and enjoying themselves as much as you can when you’re working in a field. There is little in the way of talking for quite a while so I had to content myself with the fact that we’ve got Dumbledore, Boromir, and the homeless pigeon lady from Home Alone 2 all present. I can’t even explain how or why I was so excited to see the homeless pigeon lady but it might have had something to do with it being the only thing happening in the film for a long time. But then someone shouts just the best line, in such a way that it could only be shouted sincerely by crazy village folk: “THEY MURDERED YOUR FATHER’S DONKEEEY.” The best.

Despite the fact I could only understand every other sentence (I’m not good with Irish, or old people who mumble all the time), it was watchable. Richard Harris was brilliant, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as anyone other than Dumbledore but he is a great actor. Sean Bean, your acting is so weird in this film I can’t even explain it, and you die again! I’ve never seen a film where you survive the whole way through. This is such an old man film. I don’t mean that as a criticism but it is just dripping with it. It was ok, I liked Bull’s gradual mental decline but I’m not too interested in old people fighting for a field. I know it was about family and all that but killing people for what is essentially just a field just doesn’t compute with my brain.

6/10