High Boot Benny
[1993 / 80 mins / Colour / 35mm / 16:9 format]
Comerford’s personalised political allegory, High Boot Benny, is an open examination of the clash between individual and political forces in a time of war. Shot on the wintry Inishowen peninsula, Donegal, close to The North of Ireland border, the story centres on Benny, an orphaned Belfast teenager taken into care by Protestant schoolmistress, The Matron. She and her partner, Manley, an ex-priest, run a small school which takes pupils from both sides of the border. They serve as alternative parents to Benny, but when the school’s caretaker, an IRA informer, is executed, suspicion falls on the boy and his guardians. Benny is caught in the crossfire as police, paramilitaries and the British Army close in and The Matron and Manley’s intimate secrets rise bloodily to the surface. The assured direction by Comerford and the three central performances by Marc O’Shea, Frances Tomelty and Alan Devlin as the duplicitous, but likeable Manley contribute to this understated masterpiece.
[eugene finn]
‘The warmth of the characters is in astonishing contrast to the bleak, if magnificent setting... Authentically, blackly-comic... one of the most important films to come out of the country. Don’t miss it.’
— Dublin Event Guide
“High Boot Benny is vivid and dangerous”
— News Day. New York.