This series highlights cinema created in and around Glasgow over the years, from micro-budget amateur fare to top-of-the-range Hollywood productions, with a view to fostering viewing (so no spoilers here).
Orphans: Ardmore/Channel 4
If That Sinking Feeling demonstrated the preferred absurd humour of Glaswegians, set against the stark realities of working life, Orphans (1998) lets loose that other, darker shade of comedy that Glasgow Films indulge in.
Starring Douglas Henshall, Gary Lewis, Rosemarie Stevenson and Stephen McCole as four siblings brought together for the funeral of their mother, the film marked actor Peter Mullan’s (who shall doubtless be found popping up again in this series) debut feature. Shot predominantly in the Southside, especially Govanhill and Pollockshields, with a notable scene in pub Sammy Dow’s, Orphans lets the city act as a stage for its drama, letting the people who live there steal focus. Suffice to say, this highlights an important aspect of Glasgow Films: they needn’t be merely documenting the areas and issues of the city to capture its essence.
For a debut, it is stellar work, fusing a strange, dark sense of humour with moments of poignancy, as each of the Flynn siblings finds themselves in a different predicament across a particularly stormy night (meteorologically speaking), reacting to and coping with the death of their mother in distinctly different ways. Of particular note is Gary Lewis’s performance as the eldest of the Flynn siblings, Thomas, who stays keeping vigil in the church with his mother overnight, in preparation for the funeral, there carrying the coffin himself (as you can see from our picture). Lewis is one of those typical character actors that you see popping up all over the place, from The Gangs of New York to It’s a Sin, always giving performances worthy of notice. Truthfully, however, all four of the siblings are excellently portrayed, and the bit-parts are all characterful and distinctive. The confluence of these small yet memorable roles and four fully fleshed out performances seems to add another laying to the Glaswegian authenticity of the picture; many a night out in Glasgow will end up featuring similar distinct strangers who feature in your stories thereafter.
Whereas our first film, That Sinking Feeling, was rather explicitly about class, youth, and wider social issues, Orphans is rather more a character piece, focusing on more universal themes, yet retaining ultimately a distinctly Glaswegian flavour. That isn’t to say that social concerns peculiar to the Glaswegian experience are absent (indeed, it would be difficult for a proper Glasgow Film to entirely elide these wider concerns, so integral to the character of the city are they), but rather that Orphans is more a deftly-constructed piece of tragicomedy than social document.
Orphans won 1999 Paris Film Festival’s Grand Prix, as well as 1998 Venice Film Festival’s Cult Network Italia, Isvema Award, Kodak Award, and Prix Pierrot — not too bad for a first go, suffice to say. If you find yourself wanting a fine draught of gallows humour, but with substance and poignancy as a chaser, Orphans should be your order, especially if it is Glasgow film fare you’re after.
Orphans is available to stream via Amazon Prime.
Words by Adam Nicholson
Comments