Gerry Jeffers is a member of the Transition Year Support Team, on secondment from Firhouse Community College, Dublin.In a world where Hollywood marketing drives so much of what we view, sparkling gems of films can slip by, almost unnoticed. For me, catching Kolya in the cinema last year was a real bonus.
The film is set in Prague in 1988, shortly before the collapse of Soviet communism and the end of the Cold War. Louka is a middle-aged cellist, fired from the Czech Philharmonic for his independent attitude. He scrapes a living playing at funerals and restoring tombstones. At home, in a decaying apartment, he seduces a string of female musicians.
In debt, and desparately needing a vehicle to lorry his cello around, Louka agrees to a dodgy proposal from his friend Broz: a marriage of convenience to Nadezda, a Russian woman who want Czech papers.
Nadezda then disappears to Berlin, leaving her five-year old son, Kolya, with her aunt in Prague. The aunt dies and Kolya becomes Louka's responsibility.
Kolya is directed by Jan Sverak and Louka is played by his 55-year-old father, Zdenek, who also wrote the screenplay. The film's strength lies in its exploration of the relationship between Kolya and Louka. While the storyline is predictable, the telling of the details is pure, joyous cinema. Through subtle and memorable images - steaming soup, a trinket in a gutter, Louka's patriotic mother, Kolya lost in the Metro, a Russian soldier - and a rich musical score, we share in Kolya's confusion and Louka's frustration, and in the beginning of the latter's redemption. In case this sounds a bit too sentimental, the film is shot through with enough earthy humour and realism to keep our feet on the ground. And the powerful political parallels are always close to the surface. Kolya is not quite The Unbearable Lightness of Being meets Cinema Paradiso, but close!
Michael Barry teaches classical studies at St Patrick's Girls' Secondary School, Gardiner's Hill, Cork.
I recently went to see As Good As It Gets, on the assumption that any film capable of safely delivering two Oscars out of the Titanic whirlpool must be worth a look. I'm just old enough (!) to remember Jack Nicholson's previous two Oscar-winning performances, so the combination of best actor and best actress (Helen Hunt) playing off each other on the one screen led me to believe that the title of the film was self-descriptive.
Director James L Brooks's greatest achievement to date has been the TV cartoon family, The Simpsons. Its success rests partly on its zany characters and partly on the fact that it never takes itself too seriously. Unfortunately, in As Good As It Gets, Brooks transfers the cartoon characters to the big screen but without the saving grace of Homer Simpson's self-parodic humour.
It is disturbing to see Jack flailing about in an effort to cope with the hyper-paranoid, schizophrenic, yet ultimately vulnerable character which has become an acting cliche for him. If ever there was a star-vehicle, this is it, starring Jack Nicholson as Jack Nicholson. No wonder he won an Oscar for it; who could play him better?
Helen Hunt does her best as the conscientious single mother with the tragic asthmatic child, and manages to banish some of the superfluous fluff from the role. But it's not enough to give credence to the unlikely alliance between the two lead characters.
So what does Brooks do when the plot seems to be heading for the same fate as the Titanic? He sticks Hunt and Nicholson in a Thelma-and-Louise-style open convertible, with Greg Kinnear (Nicholson's gay artist neighbour) as an optional extra, the rationale being that trapped animals either kill each other or learn to get along. Of course, no one drives over a cliff and Homer is united with Marge. Doh!
Sally Shiels is a past president of the INTO.
Although my favourite author would be John Creasey - I have 294 of his books and am frantically searching for the remaining 200 or so that I haven't yet acquired - my favourite book is The White Rabbit followed by Schindler's Ark and Reach for the Skies.
After Creasey my favourite authors are Sarah Paretsky, Elizabeth George, Francis Fyfield and Lisa Cody - my day-today reading is purely for relaxation. My greatest frustration with Paretsky and George is that they don't produce books fast enough for me. John Creasey is particularly good for traffic jams - when I'm at a particularly interesting part I almost wish for red lights.
However The White Rabbit is very different. It tells the story of Tommy Yeo-Thomas who describes himself as a very ordinary person who wanted to serve in action during the second World War. Unlike Douglas Badder, whom I hero-worshipped as a 10-year-old, he did have a sense of fear and never believed for one moment that he would withstand torture.
I think that what I love about the story, which I first read when I was about 11 or 12, was that someone who could be any one of us could turn out to be so extraordinary and not only play such a pivotal role in the propaganda campaign, but also survive horrific torture.
The book gives a great sense of what the war was like for ordinary French people who were brave enough to fight in the Resistance - and perhaps an insight into why people might not.
Pat Hunt teaches English at the Loreto College in Bray, Co Wicklow.
By instinct and by profession I lean towards the literary, but the book that excited me most in recent months is The Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape (Cork University Press, £30). The central metaphor of a poem on the fly leaf by Cathal O Searcaigh captures the spirit of the book: "Here is gathered the anthology of my community/ the texts inscribed through their inky sweat."
Most of us who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s took the landscape for granted; change was gradual, almost imperceptible, and it was not until the explosive bursts of development in housing and agriculture in recent decades that we begin to feel the stirrings of guilty consciences. This book challenges a new generation, which has fallen out of communication with its ancestors, to reflect on the consequences of unbridled forces of change.
The atlas explores the distinctive features which give the Irish rural landscape its distinctive character, especially the cultural elements such as field and settlement patterns, buildings, archaeological and historical monuments, demesnes, woodlands, bogs, communications, mines and factories. Were we all to read this book we would become tourists in what is the most fascinating theme park in the world.
The book is lavishly illustrated with a mesmerising series of maps and a riot of gorgeous photographs and charts - each one a visual treat. We too often forget our landscape is an expression of the physical remains of nine millennia of human occupations. The text, though academic, is accessible.
In an era when the creed "Greed is Good" has become "Greed is God", this book offers a splendid appreciation of our past, and its authors suggest that we still have time to embrace change without losing the distinctive character of the land we love so well.
Vivian Cassels is a guidance counsellor at the Christian Brothers' Oatlands College, Mount Merrion, Dublin.
Recently I had the opportunity to view, after a lapse of time, Dead Poets' Society.
The film had a dual impact on me. In the first place it underlines how difficult it is to effect change; the school concerned was steeped in tradition and was quite content to carry on this tradition from generation to generation. The appointment of a new teacher of English was the catalyst for change. His use of the school motto, Carpe Diem (Seize the Day) was a motivating catchphrase for his eager students. The students were challenged to think for themselves and to explore other aspects of literature. But it was not just the efforts of one radical teacher to challenge the system that made this film special for me. Rather it was the spectacle of a father who would not allow any enjoyment of extracurricular activities to divert his son from his studies. The fact that this single-minded obsession ultimately drove his son to commit suicide made a dramatic impact. How could any parent be so focused on his child's future as to be blind to the fact that he was endangering the child's mental health? As a veteran of the Irish Times "phone-in", when crucial career choices have to be made, I have listened to too many students seeking advice on how
to exit courses they no longer enjoy - "I wouldn't have taken the course in the first place only for my parents." Maybe Dead Poets' Society should be recommended viewing for parents of Leaving Cert students.
Sister Shiela Kelleher is principal of Presentation Secondary School, Ballyphehane, Cork.
Some films begin to recede as soon as the credits start to role, others remain indelibly printed on the mind. Scott Hick's Shine belongs to the latter category.
The reaction to the Australian masterpiece at the 1996 Cork Film Festival was stunned silence. By the time it reached the Kino Cinema in Cork in February 1997, word had spread. "This is not to be missed" and crowds queued along Washington Street in the winter rain to view a heart-warming, heartbreaking film about a musical genius. The story of world-renowned pianist David Helfgott is now familiar to all. The agony and the ecstasy of the troubled prodigy had their origins in his family. David's love of music came from his father, Peter, who had survived the German concentration camps, having lost the other members of his family in the Holocaust. Though physically strong, he has almost managed to conceal the deep scars on his psyche until David threatens to leave the family and pursue his music career abroad. The rage that lay dormant in Peter begins to find expression - and the father, who had nurtured his son's talent now seeks to curb it with violence. Armin Mueller Stahl is powerful as Peter Helfgott, but the film revolves around the performances of two actors, Noah Taylor as young David, Geoffrey Rush as David the adult. The thought-provoking performances of these two young men will stay with me forever.
Many people found this film harrowing. I found it uplifting. It shows the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. It's about art surpassing all boundaries. It set me to think: what parent would choose genius for his child, if mental torture was part of the deal?
