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Amazon.com Essential Video
What's remarkable about this film (which Sayles adapted from Rosalie Fry's novel Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry) is that it's not told as a cute fantasy for children, but as a straightforward, unsentimental story of a young girl's family history. That gives the film--which was beautifully photographed by master cinematographer Haskell Wexler--an understated charm that is completely absorbing in its atmosphere and subtle tone. There's magic as well, to be sure--you could almost swear that the seals and seagulls in the film took direction from Sayles as well as any human actor! --Jeff Shannon
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
you must watch this movie before you die!,
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This review is from: The Secret of Roan Inish (DVD)
this is my absolute favorite movie and has been ever since i was a little girl. my mother actually introduced me to this movie and since then i have become addicted to all things mythological (i probably would have gotten into it anyways, but this sped up the process). it's a story about a girl who goes to live with her grandparents for a while because her father is too busy with work to care for her. while with her grandparents she visits an island her family used to live on, also, the island where her younger brother was taken away by the sea. she snoops around the island and catches glimpses of a small boy she suspects to be her brother. as it turns out selkies have taken him away. so the girl, with the help of her cousin, begin to make the abandoned houses on the island habitable again so that they can move back, thereby getting the girl's brother back from the sea. this film is subtle, yet superbly effective in giving you that evanescent, magical feeling. so many movies try to capture that evasive 'something else' but end up being fake and cheesy but this one makes the cut. it's suitable for all ages and is a definite must experience. the soundtrack isnt bad either.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magical Irish Tale,
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This review is from: The Secret of Roan Inish (DVD)
The Secret of Roan Innish is a movie unlike any other I have seen. Truly enchanting, haunting, moving, and inspiring, I recommend this movie to anyone who has not lost their sense of childlike wonder, and who remembers fairy tales read on a rainy day.Roan Innish means Seal Island in Celtic. The story is of a young, orphaned Irish girl determined to uncover her family's secret. Her brother has been missing, and is never mentioned by her traditional and loving grandparents, who are raising her. The intrepid girl uses her detective skills, perseverance, hard work, and all the resources at hand to uncover a mystery greater than she or her grandparents ever imagined. This is a movie for adults more than children, as the heavy Irish brouge is a bit difficult to translate at first, and the beautiful filmography may seem slow-moving to children. Amazing acting will transport you to a place you have never been and will never forget.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Living, Loving, Sorrowing, Telling Stories,
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This review is from: Secret of Roan Inish (VHS Tape)
No battles, no rebellious teenagers, no sex, no violence...Just people: living, loving, sorrowing, telling stories. And oh, how those stories resonate through time...I saw this when it first came out and loved it. Recently bought the video and watched it again. Still beautiful, achingly so, that rich and quiet Irish kind of beauty which strikes so deep into the soul. A deceptively simple tale---a young girl trying to solve the mystery of the disappearance of her baby brother during the evacuation of her ancestral island---made resonant by the power of the storyteller's voice. The contrast between the poverty of possessions and the richness of family relationships is striking, and it is one of the most beautifully-filmed movies I know, with several truly spine-shivery, eerie moments, mostly in the sepia-tinted flashbacks. The soundtrack is equally beautiful, with authentic Irish airs and lullabies woven in and out to strengthen and support the storyline. The little girl who plays Fiona does so with quiet grace, beauty, and a maturity of focus unusual in a child actor. The actor who plays her cousin Eamonn is less successful, I think, sounding rather self-conscious much of the time. The actors playing her grandparents are absolutely wonderful---and how often do we get to see older characters as the strong backbone of a movie, and not played for laughs or milked for pathos? Two other standouts: the slim, dark, feral, cousin-serval-times-removed, who provides Fiona with vital clues by relating an age-old family story, and the pre-Raphaelite-looking woman who plays Nuala, the selkie woman in the misty ancestral past, dark, wild-eyed, strange and beautiful. I think that I love this film because of the whole Celtic edge-of-otherness kind of thing, but I cannot imagine most toddlers sitting through this one. But for older children, and for family viewing, this is one I'd recommend strongly.
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