"It's Past Times I'm Talkin' About Here, Ye Know?:" Under the Clock and the Nostalgic Irish Documentary

• Published in: Film Criticism Vol. 42; no. 3
• Main Author: Negra, Diane
• Format: Journal Article Book Review Web Resource
• Language: English
• Published: Ann Arbor Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan Library) 01.01.2018; Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library
• Subjects: Anxiety; Clocks & watches; Cultural change; Documentary films; Elementary school students; Globalization; Hitchcock, Alfred (1899-1980); Mobile phones; Motion pictures; Personal relationships; Social change; Social history; Ireland
• ISSN: 2471-4364; 0163-5069; 2471-4364
• DOI: 10.3998/fc.13761232.0042.318

In post-financial crash Ireland, a particular strain of documentary film has become a staple in the national cinematic output. Often calling upon subjects who are presented as consummately Irish, these films devote themselves to assessing imperilled institutions and conditions of social health focusing on aspects of the Irish “way of life.” Usually nostalgic, these films articulate (implicitly or explicitly) anxiety about social change and cultural loss brought on by technologization and globalization. Filmmaker Ken Wardrop may be seen as the consummate practitioner of this approach, having produced one of the earliest and most successful films of the category, His and Hers (2009), which demonstrated the existence of an audience for material of this kind and surely influenced the films that followed.[1] These films include Bye Bye Now (2009) about the loss of the Irish phone box in the shift to a mobile phone culture, the above-mentioned His and Hers, a set of testimonials by largely rural women about the men in their lives, The Irish Pub (2013) documenting the decline of the pub as a central institution of Irish life, One Million Dubliners (2014) about Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery (effectively the national cemetery), Older Than Ireland (2015) profiling a set of delightful Irish centenarians and Making the Grade (2018) another Wardrop film about piano students preparing for a qualification exam. The most recent entry in this category is Under the Clock (2018), which takes as its subject the once-common practice of couples meeting under the clock at Clerys Department Store on O’Connell Street in Dublin. I single out Under the Clock (still playing in cinemas as I write) because it is the film that most directly engages with the effects of neoliberal capitalism in contemporary Irish life.