Down the Corner
[1977 / 56 mins / Colour / 16mm / 4:3 format]
Filmed social-realist style on the working-class housing estate of Ballyfermot, Dublin, Down the Corner takes place over a few late-summer days as five schoolboys, Pedro, Buller, Joeboy, Jennings and Micko, plan a raid on an orchard in neighbouring territory. Their schooldays, leisure time, and domestic lives, are shown in near-documentary detail. The youthful playfulness of the boys contrasts with the suffocating aimlessness of the social environment. Allusions to violence, bloodshed and wounding dominate Down the Corner. In a key scene, the boys indulge in a humorous dialogue about how blood changes from blue to red when it leaves the veins, suggesting an innocent curiosity that might well be the key to their endurance. Down the Corner was a (temporary) departure from the experimental manner of Comerford’s earlier work to a more realist style. One significant scene, however, a grainy monochrome flashback to the War of Independence, uses abstraction to underline a central theme, to suggest perhaps a lost opportunity for the future.
[eugene finn]
“...is absolutely compelling to watch, full of humour and life, and the whole film has an air of reality and relevance”
— New Musical Express
‘A first in the history of Irish Filmmaking... full of sudden insights... savage, sad, bitter, happy, tender, raw, but never once sentimental... without pretence or apology.’
The Irish People