The Bishop's Story

In this deliberate b/w homage to the silent era, a bishop (McCann) relates to a fellow priest (McBride) at a Roman Catholic retreat the story of how as a young man in a coastal village in the West of Ireland he fell in love with a girl (Fegan). The flashbacks which make up the body of the film are printed in sepia and shot in a style reminiscent of Flaherty and Sjöström. It's a nostalgic, memorable piece, from the veteran Bob Quinn, not so much for the resigned mood of the storyteller, as for the deeply moving imagery - a collie running up a hill; the white-clothed ankle of a girl; the dancing torches of a midnight search party; the expressive, weather-beaten faces of the villagers. The dialogue is in Gaelic, post-synched and quiet, as if heard from down the tunnel of memory.