Ondine

365 Films

Entry #140

Ondine (2009)

Directed by Neil Jordan

I wish I could expound on how Ondine fits in with the wildly diverse yet thematically coherent works of director Neil Jordan.  I will be the first to say here and now that I am not currently equipped to pull such a thorough and comprehensive analysis out of my behind.  I just ask that you be patient and hopefully within the next couple of months I will complete the many blind spots I currently possess for Mr. Jordan's oeuvre.  What I can tell you, however, is that Ondine is completely worth your time (as is Byzantium, his most recently released film) and that from what I understand, if there was ever a director worthy of tackling a modern day Irish folk tale, it is Neil Jordan.  This film is so visually splendid, it's quite easy to get lost in the boggy gray skies and lush green hills of the Irish coast so as to get lost in the melancholic fun Mr. Jordan has by toying with our fairy tale expectations.  The story centers around a recovering alcoholic fisherman named Syracuse but nicknamed Circus by friends and relatives for reasons that are doled out piece by piece throughout the story.  He shares custody of his daughter, Annie with his currently alcoholic ex-wife and Annie has a kidney condition that requires weekly dialysis.  These elements seems to be setting up a slog through kitchen sink Irish melodrama (nothing against those films mind you) but Jordan invigorates this particular tale by introducing the title character of Ondine, caught in one of Syracuse's nets and thought to be a sea nymph originated from the myths of Scottish folklore.  This allows the director to indulge in one of his favorite (again, supposedly) leitmotifs: that of the magical realm of storytelling gracefully and sometimes forcefully instilling itself into that of the quotidian everyday.  One of the things I love most about Ondine is Jordan's reluctance to push the qualities of either method too far so as to weigh the other one down.  The story is neither as dreary, nor as fantastical as it has the potential to be and far from being muddled or confused as to its tone, it aims to possess a compelling balance of both and succeeds mightily.  Also, for anyone who knows me and my musical taste, Ondine is a bit of a no brainer for it boasts a very heavily Sigur Ros-accented score and soundtrack.  It wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that the film means to prove once and for al the truly ethereal, other-wordly cinematic qualities of the Icelandic trio's music.  Sigur Ros has been long heavily leaned on as the triumphant capper to an emotional climax in other films but what Jordan does here is utilize the music is in a more ambient, atmospheric sense so that it is almost as much a part of the cinematic landscape as the rolling hills.  Spoiler alert, but somebody needs to tell me which part of Ireland has Sigur Ros concerts being broadcast on television in the middle of the day because I'd love to be flipping around and stumble upon that sometime.  In other words, it's difficult to imagine the film without the accompanying score, so firmly in sync it is with the visuals.  In fact, that might be the more comprehensive way to describe the pleasures that Ondine has to offer: everything is so perfectly calibrated, perfectly aligned in a very tricky balance that you wouldn't want it any other way.