By M. Faust
(Image above: From ‘That They May Face the Rising Sun,’ photo by Martin Maguire)

That They May Face the Rising Sun opens with several pastoral vistas of such nearly blinding greenness that, if you didn’t know anything about the film you were about to see, you would have no trouble guessing that it is set in Ireland. 

The specific location is a rural part of the Emerald Isle, nestled amid hills at the edge of a lake. Five years ago, Joe (Barry Ward) and Kate (Anna Bederke) Ruttledge gave up life in London to move into a small farmhouse here, close to where Joe grew up. He is a writer, she is a photographer and part owner of a London art gallery. They don’t seem to earn much money from any of these endeavors, but neither do they seem to need much, and with a bit of farming and beekeeping they manage to get by. 

Aside from chores and pursuing their muses (Joe has been working at writing something, but he doesn’t know what it is), they spend most of their time with visits from the locals, mostly older fellows. A hardscrabble but kindly bunch, they seem bemused by Joe and Kate’s appreciation of a place that strikes them as nothing special because it’s all they have ever known. As one of them summarizes, “The rain comes down, the sun shines, the grass grows, children grow old and die – that’s the holy all of it.” (Lines like this are presumably taken intact from the novel by John McGahern on which the film is based.) 

That They May Face the Rising Sun is not a film to set your pulse racing. If anything, it’s the cinematic equivalent of lisinopril, something to lower the blood pressure. The time setting is never mentioned: the novel takes place in the 1980s, but life here probably hadn’t changed much in the hundred years prior to that. I don’t recall seeing any electric devices, and one character mentions that the area will be getting telephones for the first time in the coming year. Aside from conversations, birdsong is about the only thing you’ll hear, along with a score of simple piano melodies. 

As directed by Pat Collins, an Irish filmmaker who has produced primarily documentaries in a long career, That They May Face the Rising Sun reminded me of two other films about the simple pleasures of everyday life, Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days (2023) and Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson (2016). All have found inspiration in the work of Yasujiro Ozu, Japan’s patron saint of contemplative cinema, and surely it is no coincidence that a license plate seen here reads “OZU 155.” It will be playing for a week at the North Park, afternoon shows only. 

I would love to be able to tell you that The Ballad of Wallis Island, also playing at local theaters, makes a perfect second feature. The two films certainly have enough in common, this one set on a remote island off the coast of England that doesn’t even have a pier to accommodate visitors. 

When musician Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) arrives here for a lucrative private gig, he is shocked to discover the exact terms: he will be performing for an audience of one, that being Charles Heath (Tim Key), a middle-aged widower who won a big lottery prize.

Charles has also invited Herb’s former partner Nell (Carey Mulligan), with whom he made a series of folk-ish albums that so resonated with their host that he engineered this weekend in the hope that they would resume their collaboration. 

Initially resistant, Herb agrees to rehearse with his former lover (who has brought her new husband along). As they work through some old songs, the film acquires a little of the mood of John Carney’s much-loved Once (2007) as we watch the music acquire shape. But despite the apparent quality of the songs (composed by Basden), we don’t get very much of them.

It’s notable that the script by Basden and Key resists going where you expect it to. But it doesn’t really go much of anywhere, meandering on to a dramatic revelation from Charles that isn’t actually all that dramatic.