How Harry Became a Tree
2001 drama film by Goran Paskaljević
- 13 September 2001 (2001-09-13) (TIFF)
Running time
How Harry Became a Tree is a 2001 drama film directed by Goran Paskaljević.[1] It is based on a Chinese story Lao Dan by Yang Zhengguang and deals allegorically with the Irish and Balkan civil wars.[2]
Plot
In rural Ireland in 1924, Harry Maloney (Colm Meaney), believing "a man is measured by his enemies", nurses an unjustified enmity for George O'Flaherty, who owns the local pub and most of the businesses in the area and is the local matchmaker. When Harry's son Gus (Cillian Murphy), upon whom Harry regularly heaps mental and verbal abuse falls for George's maidservant, Eileen, George helps put the two together. George's seduction of Eileen gives Harry the opportunity to create a scandal, despite the effect on his own family.
Cast
- Colm Meaney - Harry Maloney
- Adrian Dunbar - George
- Cillian Murphy - Gus Maloney
- Kerry Condon - Eileen
- Pat Laffan - Father O'Connor
- Gail Fitzpatrick - Margaret
Reception
Reviewing the film in Hot Press, Craig Fitzsimons wrote "though flawed, How Harry Became A Tree would probably qualify as the most effective example of homegrown bucolic melodrama since Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy (1997 film) adaptation".[3]
The New York Times said that it was "a comic and improbably loving meditation on hate, absurdist but never abstract, using Ireland in 1924 as a stand-in for the former Yugoslavia."[4]
References
- ^ Rooney, David (14 September 2001). "How Harry Became a Tree". Variety. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
- ^ "How Harry Became a Tree". Irish Film Institute. Retrieved 2023-11-17.
- ^ Fitzsimons, Craig. "How Harry Became A Tree". Hotpress. Retrieved 2023-11-17.
- ^ https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/10/movies/arts-abroad-the-trouble-with-harry-he-just-loves-to-hate.html
External links
- How Harry Became a Tree at IMDb
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Films directed by Goran Paskaljević
- Beach Guard in Winter (1976)
- The Dog Who Loved Trains (1977)
- The Days on Earth Are Flowing (1979)
- Special Treatment (1980)
- Twilight Time (1982)
- The Elusive Summer of '68 (1984)
- Guardian Angel (1987)
- Time of Miracles (1989)
- Tango Argentino (1992)
- Someone Else's America (1995)
- Cabaret Balkan (1998)
- How Harry Became a Tree (2001)
- Midwinter Night's Dream (2004)
- The Optimists (2006)
- Honeymoons (2009)
- When Day Breaks (2012)
- Land of the Gods (2016)
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