Angela's
Ashes is perhaps the saddest film of 1999, but with
a happy ending. Directed by Alan Parker, the film is based
on the autobiography of Frank McCourt, who is played by three
actors at various stages of his life (Joseph Breen, Ciaran
Owens, and Michael Legge). McCourt also co-wrote the screenplay.
The story begins in Brooklyn during 1935. An Irish family,
consisting of an alcoholic father (played by Robert Carlyle),
a very loving mother Angela (played by Emily Watson), four
young boys, and a dying baby sister, is living in squalor.
When a relative visits, she finds filth in the apartment,
and many of the boys are naked, so she insists that they return
to Ireland. Young Frank sees the Statue of Liberty as he leaves
New York harbor. Without a means of economic support in Limerick,
the family lives on the dole upon arrival, with most of the
children initially walking barefoot down the street. The first
floor of their apartment, not far from the stench of excrement,
floods whenever rain falls, and rain falls nearly every day
in Limerick. The children go to school, where they learn mostly
about the Catholic faith and receive discipline for misdeeds.
As two more children in the family die from malnutrition or
disease, more are procreated to take their place. The father
looks for work unsuccessfully; then, when he finds a job,
his first paycheck reaches no farther than the first pub,
and he is fired when he fails to show up for work due to oversleep
from inebriation. Eventually, he leaves for work in England,
promising to mail checks, but of course the letter carrier
never brings any such windfall for the family. On one occasion,
Frank contracts typhoid, is hospitalized for two months, but
enjoys sleeping in a clean bed with clean sheets, using an
indoor toilet, having regular nutritious meals, and reading
Shakespeare. When he returns to school, he is put back a grade
over his objections, but when he pens a delightfully witty
composition about why Jesus would never live in Limerick (though
nobody in the film laughs), his effort is so outstanding that
he is returned to the same grade with his schoolmates. At
the age of 15 he works as a coal hauler, but nearly goes blind
due to the coal dust; he is treated for severe conjunctivitis,
and his mother tells him to stop work to save his eyes. Soon
he is hired as a deliverer of special delivery mail, for which
he earns occasional tips. At one of the houses, he is greeted
by a teenage girl, who lusts after him, and the two enjoy
afternoons together until she contracts tuberculosis and dies.
He is then hired by a town shrew to write letters to demand
payment on personal loans; but when he finds her dead, he
is able to pocket loose currency around the house. At this
point he has accumulated enough capital to pay for the price
of passage to America, where he is sure that every house has
an indoor lavatory, and at the end of the film he sees the
Statue of Liberty again -- as an arriving passenger. McCourt's
literary talents in due course include the autobiography that
serves as the text for many voice-overs in Angela's
Ashes; however, the voice is plaintive rather than
witty, as in the book. At least three themes hit the filmviewer
over the head. One is the abject poverty of Limerick, a town
so dreary that Ireland clearly appears to be classifiable
as a Third World nation. The second theme is the way in which
the poor live orderly lives, not the disorganization assumed
by the Irish welfare authorities. The third theme is Anglophobia,
as the English are blamed for everything wrong about Ireland.
Indeed, when Ireland stays neutral in World War II as the
Nazis bomb London, one Irishman comments that the English
deserve the destruction in light of "800 years" of misrule
over Ireland. MH
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