Popular reviews

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★★ 6

  "Men's relationship to women is just like England's relationship to Ireland. You're in possession of us. You occupy us like an army"

  It's the generally accepted view that the British film industry was in the doldrums in the 1980s but I think that verdict needs to be tempered by the fact that this period saw a time of great artistic creativity from young independent and political filmmakers (Richard Woolley immediately springs to mind), which makes the fact that the work which they contributed in this period is now so scarce and overlooked all the more frustrating. When you stumble upon such work however, it makes it all the more rewarding to the viewer. Maeve, directed by Pat Murphy and funded…

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★

  Irish filmmaker Pat Murphy's seminal 1981 film Maeve abandons a conventional narrative; in preference, it favours a sequence of vignettes that delivers a resolute insight into revolutionary ideas and paints an authoritative picture of a society.

  Set during the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the story tells of Maeve Sweeney (Mary Jackson), a twenty-year-old woman from a Catholic background who relocated to London to study and who's wholly adopted the uncompromising lifestyle of a militant feminist. She's returning to her family household in Belfast for an uncomfortable reunion with her parents, Martin (Mark Mulholland) and Eileen (Trudy Kelly).

  Memory plays a significant role in the film, and her reappearance agitates recollections for those she crosses paths with after…

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  Review by williamfaeleith ★★★½

  Well, Kenneth Branagh's 'Belfast' this is not. Shot in Belfast in 1980 in the midst of the Troubles, it really shows how difficult life was for the inhabitants of that city at that time. But it is not the Troubles that director Pat Murphy is particularly interested in portraying, rather the feminist view on the participation of women in the patriarchal Republican movement in Northern Ireland.
  It's a quiet, slow moving piece full of lengthy ideological discussions and disagreements. It's episodic and non-linear structure sometimes make it difficult to follow as it flits between three different time periods.
  It's probably remarkable that such a film, shot in such a place and on a tiny budget, was made at all. Even…

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  Review by MUBI

  Recalibrating patriarchal narratives through a female lens, Pat Murphy marries melodrama to political critique for an invigorating examination of the Troubles. Structurally fragmented through a series of conversations and confessions, Maeve is a quietly radical landmark in Irish and feminist cinema.

  Now showing in 🇬🇧 🇮🇪 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇩🇪 🇮🇳 🇹🇷 here.

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  Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★

  Women's rights in Ireland in 1981? Practically non-existent. The film is stark (and I had to turn on English subtitles, because of thick accents).

  Watched on: MUBI

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  Review by Stephen M ★★★½ 1

  Really glad MUBI is offering this film, the first film by Irish feminist filmmaker Pat Murphy in which she contrasts the Northern Ireland conflict - The Troubles - with a young woman' striving for independence against a culture that defines her by her nationalist group's oppression and celebrates male freedom fighters. It's a bit didactic at times but is nonetheless powerful and a remarkable debut.

  Maeve has fled Northern Ireland to move to London and is part of a feminist collective there. Her Catholic family (father, mother, sister) and her ex-boyfriend resent her for this, and the film begins with her return to her home in Belfast, where bombings, rocks crashing through windows, and frequent stops by paramilitary Protestant patrols…

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  Review by Michael501 📺 ★★½

  1981 In Review - September
  #4

  Maeve (Mary Jackson) returns to Belfast after being away for several years, and she stays in the family home with her sister and father.

  This is a movie that is centred around the female perspective on the troubles in Ireland. It’s definitely an interesting social document of the time. It’s most certainly under seen and although it didn’t quite connect with me, it’s one that you may need to see if you are in anyway interested in the subject matter.  My problem with the film was that it was merely a film consisting of conversations, flashing forwards and backwards through time. It disconnected me from the film.  But otherwise this is a very worthy film and the acting is superb.

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  Review by Alice Romano ★★★★ 3

  "Being a woman is a nationality I carry around with me."

  A film that really should be more seen. Realism at its finest. It was so ahead of the curve in its feminism. A forgotten little gem.

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  Review by nora ★★★★

  as i was watching this i realized how weirdly relevant it is to a feature script i'm writing, which was almost a bad thing because i kept thinking too much about the ~structure~ rather than just letting it affect me emotionally. but even still i love the homespun 16mm and all the unceremonious temporal shifts and the moments when maeve's father looks directly down the lens to tell a story (it feels a lot like the very personal whispered narration in sativa peterson's "the slow escape," a short i think about a lot for some reason). a lovely combination of two of my favorite things (weirdly forgotten feminist independent films and films about aimless people getting wrapped up in their memories) as much as a vital document of the troubles.

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  Review by freelunch ★★★½ 4

  Not well educated on the politics involving the Troubles, so I’m not touching that with a 500 foot pole. But from a cinematic standpoint, this film effectively portrays living in such an oppressive and empty environment from a feminist perspective - while tackling stuff like generational trauma as well. I was surprised at how slow and meditative it is, I guess I was expecting it to be more freewheeling and angry (like Ken Loach). It’s full of extended, so philosophical conversations that do get a bit long winded after a while, but it does help that the acting is pretty solid and the characters are pretty interesting - in particular, the titular Maeve herself who is stuck between wanting to help support her family and break free on her own from such a depressing environment.

  Really neat film, another W for Mubi.

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  Review by maneleeo ★★★½

  What a find this film was. A very quiet and calm irish flick about a woman simply trying to be. There's nothing else that can be said about the film and this simple statement is huge in every sense. Beautiful exploration and great acting throughout.

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  Review by Marcello ★★★★

  “Nationalism is a reaction to attack, to imperialism. We are like a nation within a nation. Men’s relationship to women is just like England’s relationship to Ireland. You’re in possession of us. You occupy us like an army. […] Being a woman is a nationality I carry around with me.”