Solitary [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Eamonn Murphy
scheda film] was named Best Irish Independent Film at the Galway Film Fleadh and also triumphed in the 26th Arras Film Festival, walking away with the Golden Atlas - Grand Jury Prize. Cineuropa discussed the success of this debut feature film with its director, Irish filmmaker and producer Eamonn Murphy.

Cineuropa: What was the starting point for this screenplay which intertwines three different forms of isolation: the kinds that come with the countryside, with old age, and with an inward-looking character who doesn’t know how to express his feelings.

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Eamonn Murphy: Ireland has the third-highest rate of rural burglaries in Europe, and in the papers or on television I’d often see or hear about people being burgled in their homes. I’m from the city, from Dublin, but I have family in the countryside, and I’d go there every summer. The initial idea for the film came when I stepped out of the house one day into the countryside: there were no streetlights, no noise, and I realised how alone I was. At university, when I was studying film, I started writing a story that had an element of fear to it, almost like a horror film but not quite. That feeling of being alone in the countryside seemed worth exploring. But it took me a long time to fine-tune the script. Everything started to make sense when I rewrote it and changed Brendan’s character. Strange as it may seem, he’s the opposite of what all screenwriting theories advocate. Everyone says your character has to be active, drive the plot, make decisions and move the story along. That’s what I tried to do at the very beginning, with a kind of Clint Eastwood-type character. And then I thought: "Actually, I don’t know any men like that, so why not do exactly the opposite?" So I made him passive, shy, gentle. The idea of harming a person or an animal horrifies him. It makes him much more vulnerable and sympathetic in the audience’s eyes, so they’d grow more attached to him.

How did you balance this realistic depiction of the trials of old age (bereavement, loneliness, children living their own lives, your few remaining friends nearing death, etc.) with the thriller side of the story and the associated threats and paranoia?

By day, it’s a drama. When other characters are around him, Brendan feels safe, even if he can’t forge emotional connections with them, there are no real threats during the day. But as soon as night falls and all the other characters are gone and it’s just him, the film becomes more like a horror movie, with suspense and fear. You hear noises, but you don’t know if there’s anyone there.

What were your main intentions for the film’s mise en scène?
When you start deciding on the shots you’re going to use and the way you want to tell the story, you have to ask whether you can convey the scene to the audience without dialogue. Can the audience understand what’s happening based purely on the framing of the film and the action that’s taking place? It’s something that depends on shot composition, lighting and, obviously, the actors’ performances. So even on set, during rehearsals, I’d cut lines. We’d do a take, I’d watch how Gerry played it and I’d think: "He doesn’t need to speak, he doesn’t need to say that." The worst thing you can do as a director is spoon-feed the audience instead of letting them make a small effort to discover things for themselves. I wanted the visual language to be very simple, without flashy, sophisticated camera moves, and to let the story unfold in a very organic way. So with my cinematographer, David Christopher Lynch, I decided that the camera shouldn’t move for most of the film, except when there’s an emotional shift in the character or a change in the film’s tone.

Solitary is something of a production miracle, given its €60,000 micro-budget.
Yes, it’s a miracle. It was all thanks to the script and the fact that it moved people because they understood it was a very important Irish story. Everyone in Ireland knows someone like Brendan, an old man living alone, not very emotionally open and very difficult to approach. So many people supported the film in their own way, doing favours when they didn’t have to. The film really was made by the rural community where we shot.

You pitched your next project, Absence, at Arras Days. What’s it about?
It’s a thriller about an Irish student on an exchange programme in northern France who disappears. A solitary detective and the girl’s desperate parents are drawn into a dark investigation exploring the corrosive nature of obsession. I’d really like to partner with a French production company, particularly from northern France, to help bring the project to life, to find locations, financing, etc. And then take it from there to see how things develop.