This is the sound of Silence

The first feature from Cork filmmaker Pat Collins continues his documentary style of evoking a strong sense of place, says Alan O’Riordan

IN THE films of Pat Collins, you can sometimes see at work Patrick Kavanagh’s distinction between the provincial and the parochial. His films are often set in the quiet places, but there is nothing provincial about them: there is, instead, a cosmopolitan conviction about the importance of places, even out of the way ones.

Whether exploring Connemara with its great cartographer Tim Robinson, or recording John McGahern in his still, rural world, Collins never fails to make clear that wallowing in the habitual need never be banal. As he says himself, “A sense of place is almost a way of life”.