The Terms - a V. Emerson review
`My dad always told me I never done anything right. So when I burned down the caravan, I made sure to do it good and proper.'
So sets the mood for this dark, dramatic, and occasionally humorous glimpse into the life of a father and son.
Upon my first viewing of this film, I was puzzled. Upon my second, I laughed. Upon my third, I wanted so badly to know the fate of these two lost souls after the film's fade-out.
The Terms is a short film, by Johnny O'Reilly of Lemon Cut Productions. Based on a short story (`Getting It In The Head') by Mike McCormack, The Terms centers around a boy (Eamonn Owens, The Butcher Boy) and his father (John O'Toole, The General), the tension between them, and their deplorable lives in `the middle of nowhere' Ireland.
The boy, 15 years old, burns down the caravan in which he and his father live. The father, not happy with this stunt and with his performance as a son in general, decides to execute him. They work out The Terms for his punishment, and proceed to lead the viewer down a twisted, winding path which gets narrower and narrower. A path that, at the end of which, compels the viewer to question the convention of the father-son relationship, of the mentality of rural Ireland, and of modern filmmaking.
I mean this all in the most admirable way, of course. Questioning convention does not often lead to undesirable answers, if stated in the proper way. Johnny O'Reilly captured this moment, this glimpse into the lives of two random people, in such a stirring and artistic way from the striking setting, to the candid camerawork, to the perfect casting. I cannot say that I have experienced anything like it, hence my inability to convey exactly what it stirred within me.
Questions, I suppose. About the conventional ideas of what art is, and what creates a damn good film.
