Directed By: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Written By: Guy Hibbert
Cast:
Mark Davison – Young Alistair
Kevin O’Neill – Young Joe
James Nesbitt – Adult Joe
Liam Neeson –Adult Alistair
Richard Dormer –Michael
Anamaria Marinca – Vika
Barry McEvoy – Joe’s Chauffeur
Richard Orr – Alistair’s Chauffeur
Language: English Genre: Drama; Thriller
Five Minutes of Heaven is a fictional account of what would happen if two people, whose only connection was an act of violence, were thrown together.
Alistair Little (Mark Davison) is a seventeen year old lad who has been influenced by the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) to do something drastic that will right the wrongs done to the Protestants of Ireland, by the Catholics.
The UVF is loyal to the British Crown and believes in the idea of the United Kingdom. The IRA (Irish Republican Army), which is manned by Irish Catholics, believes in an independent status for Ireland. Both groups have been responsible for much violence in Northern Ireland, which is referred to as ‘The Troubles’.
Under Little’s leadership, his friends plan to kill a young Catholic man James Griffen, who the UVF intends as a warning to the IRA. Little shoots him down while he’s at home and this is viewed by his 8 year old brother Joe Griffen (Kevin O’Neill). Joe is shell-shocked by the violence and Little is sentenced to twelve years in prison.
Fast forward many years, a reconciliation project attempts to facilitate a conversation between the two. Little (Liam Neeson) has been working at rehabilitating children who have been pushed into violence and seems self-possessed. Joe (James Nesbitt) on the other hand, is fidgety and nervous.
The car journey the two make separately are very telling. Joe’s Chauffeur (Barry McEvoy) is unsure of his passenger’s mental state. Joe makes him stop so that he can smoke a cigarette and he keeps making disjointed conversation, attempting to be jovial. He frequently steps back into unwanted memories related to the aftermath of his brother’s murder. Alistair’s Chauffeur (Richard Orr) makes polite and general conversation with Alistair who seems strangely emptied out. There is blankness to his features. It is like he has been deadened by all the violence he has seen.
Alistair consented to the meeting because he understands that he has no right to ask for forgiveness but that Joe has every right to want to personally confront him. However, Joe does not want reconciliation with someone who destroyed his life and family. He wants to kill Alistair and experience his “five minutes of heaven”. Both want closure. It’s just that they want it differently. Alistair probably wants retribution or some kind of understanding that the past has changed his present and he is now a different person. Joe, on the other hand, hasn’t left the past because the memory of his mother cursing him for not having done anything haunts him.
Is reconciliation really a possibility post such traumatic experiences? Does a perpetrator really have the right to ask for forgiveness? And what is the price of vengeance? The film throws up very importantly, how far we are willing to be swept away by ideals and beliefs and, how one can be seemingly sane at the face of such an event.
The deliberate movements of the camera, the editing and the pared down, raw acting throws up in relief all these emotions.
It is a brief film with quiet yet tense action broken by intense moments. A tightly wound script, it is an important take on the turbulence in Northern Ireland.
This is a blog. I write it. 