Fréwaka – a Irish folk horror movie that is a gem of Irish filmmaking … at Belfast Film Festival #BFF24

This year’s Belfast Film Festival opened on Thursday evening with a gala screening of Aislinn Clark’s Fréwaka.

It’s set on the Cooley Peninsula in rural County Louth. A live-in home help Shoo (played by Clare Monnelly) is dispatched to look after an older woman Peig (Bríd Ní Neachtain) who resides alone. Or is she alone? Is she being tormented by the souls living in the home she believes is buried under her house? She’s certainly superstitious to the point of paranoia. And what’s with the wee fella from the village with the stern looking billy goat? (It’s as if every movie at this year’s festival has a prominent animal. Check out Universal Language’s gobbling turkeys.)

This is an Irish horror film, and one of the questions at the forefront of my mind at the premiere was whether the geography and the language mattered. And the clear answer was yes. In so many ways. Visually there’s a strong connection with the earth, rooted in the trees and fauna. The tradition of wakes is prominent, along with poring over death notices in newspapers. There are Mummers! But there’s also a sense of intergenerational grief and inherited trauma. Of not dealing with the past – being mentally and perhaps even physically haunted by it – and storing up problems for the future. The use of Irish language also roots the drama in a close-knit community. As an English-speaking audience member, it gave the characters a sense of being on the same wavelength, of sharing history and culture … and baggage. There are smatterings of English and even some Ukrainian exchanged too between Shoo and her girlfriend Mila (Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya).

I normally avoid horror films. For me, there’s no sense sitting through something that leaves your stomach in knots. For lots of other people, they experience that as entertainment. Give me a thran Icelandic tale of sheep or motherhood instead ... though even that country’s film output can turn towards horror!

But if I’d followed my instinct, I’d have missed out on a gem of an example of top-quality Irish filmmaking. There are some great performances from the lead characters: Mila brilliantly needles Shoo into confronting her grief with Bystrzhitskaya showing concern short of nagging, while the constant tussle between Peig and Shoo keeps shifting the balance of power and sanity between the pair.

Narayan Van Maele makes the landscape lush and captures the desolate state of the decaying house. The editing is superb (John Murphy) allowing so many aspects of the emerging story to be heard before being seen. Flitting between timelines is done with a confidence that an intelligent audience will follow what’s happening without needing extraneous clues. And the soundtrack. Oh the clamouring soundscape that Die Hexan has produced is glorious. In long word-less stretches, the music becomes dialogue, loud, multi-layered, with distressed instruments not confined to the string section. Clarke’s screenplay neatly flips the carer/cared-for relationship on its head as the sense of co-dependency rises towards the film’s climax. (The foley team should take a special bow for the squelchy scene with the deadly door handle!)

Fréwaka was a very creepy start to what promises to be a fabulous festival. Hopefully it won’t be too long before Aislinn Clarke’s creation comes back to local cinemas to delight larger non-squeamish audiences who adore folk horror. Belfast Film Festival runs until Saturday 9 November.

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