Garage (2007)

Director:

Leonard Abrahamson

Writer:

Mark O'Halloran (writer)

Release Date:

5 October 2007 (Ireland)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A tragicomedy set in the world of gas stations in rural Ireland, where over-diligent employee of the garage searches for intimacy during the course of a life-changing summer.

Plot Keywords:

Gas Station | Rural | Alcohol | Horse | Loneliness

Awards:

11 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Pat Shortt	...	Josie
Anne-Marie Duff	...	Carmel
Conor Ryan	...	David
Tommy Fitzgerald	...	Declan
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Andrew Bennett	...	Sully
Denis Conway	...	Garda Michael
George Costigan	...	Dan
Tom Hickey	...	Mr. Skerrit
Una Kavanagh	...	Pauline
John Keogh	...	Mr. Gallagher
Suzy Lawlor	...	Louise
Jason Nelligan	...	Lester
Don Wycherley	...	Breffni

Runtime:

Canada:85 min (Toronto International Film Festival)

Country:

Ireland

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

Ireland:15A | Canada:14A | UK:18 | France:Unrated | Australia:MA | New Zealand:R16

Filming Locations:

Ireland

Company:

Element Pictures

Trivia:

The reason why this film received the highest UK cinema rating - 18 - is entirely due to the close-up of the porn video that Josie receives from a van driver.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Carmel offers Josie a bag for his shopping, she gives him a plastic bag, but does not charge him the 22c plastic bag levy in place in Ireland. This was probably a kindness on her part.

Movie Connections:

Features The Affair (2006) (V)

Melancholy, by Leonard Abrahamson

Melancholy.

In the film Garage, directed by Leonard Abrahamson, we see a good example of the melancholy of a man who is alone, appreciated by many people, but this people do not go a step further in their relationship with him.

We can see in Josie's life (Pat Shortt) the happiness of the person that is not literate and does not know anything about real life, and thinks that everything is OK and that everybody takes care of him, as a childish thought about the society, but some events are going to change his mind.

This sense of melancholy is given also, apart from the performance of Shortt, by the type of shots appearing in the film, mainly by extremely long shots, covering as much images as possible, even if there are people inside the frame. This type of shots give us the feeling of loneliness that Josie feels, although he does not realize of it, and transfer us the loneliness of the Irish countryside, sad, rainy and plain.

We can see that the camera is just a witness of what is happening, it is not a watcher of the action, as an example there are not counter shots or over-the-shoulder shots, everything is just like a photography, where the director wants to have as much visual information as possible. The lack of conversation is solved by this use of the camera, and the absence of a real action is not the important characteristic of this film, but something that aims us to think about the film, not just to see it.

Darío Metola Rodríguez.