Ondine

I’m not a big fan of Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan’s work and Ondine is not about to change my opinion that despite its pretension to high-mindedness it tends to resolve in rather cloyingly conventionality.

Ondine starts off intriguingly enough with Syracuse (Colin Farrell), a fisherman and reformed alcoholic pulling up a beautiful young woman (Alicja Bachleda) in his fishing net while trawling off the Irish coast. She appears to be dead but he miraculously revives her. She refuses to give any explanation of what had happened to her but he takes her to the cottage of his late mother to recover. Encouraged by the imagination of his wheel-chair bound daughter, Annie (Alison Barry), he begins to believe that she is a “selkie”, a water nymph of Hebridean lore, and this belief is encouraged by her strange songs and the fact that his luck changes for the better and he starts pulling in big catches of fish.

The story, written by Jordan, is intriguing, and well-realized, the rather improbable beauty of Bachleda aside, with Farrell doing a great job as the none-too-bright fisherman, ably supported by Jordan regular Stephen Rea, as the pragmatic parish priest.  Jordan keeps the mystery light in tone and the stunning photography by Christopher Doyle beautifully complements the mystifying nature of the story.

Then in the latter stages, the film shifts gear, crashing out of its pastoral fancy and into the realm of contemporary action thriller before quickly resolving to a pat finale. Rarely has so much of value been thrown overboard for such a meagre reward. Some things are better off not being explained and this is one of them. Enjoy Ondine while you can and when you start to see it turn into something familiar, switch it off and imagine how Annie might have ended it.

DVD Extras: Descriptive sub-titles for the hearing impaired; Audio description for the vision impaired.

Available from: Village Roadshow

 

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