Michael Scanlan

This is a grim and dark film which depicts a nightmarish episode of the Irish Experience. The photography is stark, unsettling, beautiful. Hugo Weaving and James Frecheville provide unsentimental performances as military men with conflicting motives. Weaving in particular, provide the best performance as a disturbed English military man who has seen too much death to function sanely in famine era Ireland. My criticism of the film is it's lack of Irish spirit, humor, etc. This is something that the Wind that Shakes the Barley seems to capture effortlessly, but is always out of the grasp in 47. At times, especially in the first 30-45 minutes, 47 tends to tragedy porn. While the story of the suffering and desperation which the Irish experienced needed to be told, I think it could have been done with more Irish humor and grace.