I’m taking a Folklore and Film class, so I imagine the next few month’s movie reviews will have to do with movies that involve some level of folk story. It should be interesting and fun.

Tonight, I watched the 1995 film, The Secret of Roan Inish, directed by John Sayles. I spent one hundred minutes immersed in the salty Irish sea air, listening to the lilting Irish brogue, in a tragic fantasy.

This film centers on a young girl named Fiona Caneely and her family. The weather on the remote Irish islands is unpredictable and dangerous, has caused the death of her mother, the loss of her baby brother, and had forced her and the extended family members to abandon their home on tiny Roan Inish (which means “Island of the seals”). This has caused familial separation from what was once a tribe-like existence to Fiona, father and brother, and her uncle and his family moving to the mainland, while her grandparents moved to another remote island near Roan Inish. Fiona’s father is not handling the loss of his wife and son very well, and in a typified Irish male response to trouble, has become a resident of the local pub, so Fiona is sent to stay with her grandparents on their remote island near Roan Inish. Once she arrives, she is told fantastical tales of the past, and in heroistic fashion, she sets about getting things right.

This is a mythical tale, focused on the Caneely clan, that involves a boy at sea, a mythological creature, and the strength and determination of a young girl. There are many symbols associated with Irish culture, like pubs and beer, tea, the sea, storytelling, Catholicism, and a musical soundtrack that cannot help but to draw you into an Irish state of mind.

In addition to the Irish setting and Irish family, there are many seagulls and seals who are as much a part of the story (or maybe more) than the people. The seals first greet Fiona as she arrives to the island, and the seagull is never far from her. The mythical tale involves a seal-woman, called a selkie (not a selfie!), who is taken by a Caneely man two generations before, and since the Irish are superstitious, believe that “the sea gives and it takes away.” So, the chain of events is the man takes the selkie, and the sea takes their homes and their child. Ultimately, all’s well that ends well.

Given the prevalence of the seal and seagull, I thought it prudent to look up what they symbolize. The seagull is called “the muse of bird kingdom” on nativesymbols.info, and dreamingandsleeping.com say they symbolize freedom and carefreeness, that they are the “sailors of the world,” and they are hearty and calm. The seal is said to symbolize innocence. When I put these two together, the tale uses a lot of imagery for the mermaid. The selkie is said to be “seal folk, seals are said to have been mistaken for mermaids by sailors of the world, and mermaids are often portrayed as innocent (though not always). This is what gives the story mystery.

I think this movie is an interesting tale. It is authentic in an Irish yarn-spinning way, and the Irish islands are authentically portrayed in their remoteness and extreme harshness. The cultural and familial stereotypes in this film effectively immerses the watcher into the director’s designed world to the extent that the watcher believes the tales that are being told. I would recommend watching it if you feel like escaping from the mundanity of the everyday.