The Bleak Hereafter
Terry McMahon’s psychological thriller Charlie Casanova has had a troubled gestation. With a script that had been repeatedly rejected by the Irish Film Board, no outside support and a miniscule budget, the Irish director’s hugely controversial examination of class, language and violence has achieved international acclaim and this month was picked up by Studio Canal.
Roe McDermott, 21 Nov 2011
“Sometimes you just have to say, ‘Fuck this bulllshit!’” Terry McMahon declares, sipping a cup of coffee in the Twisted Pepper on Middle Abbey Street. Dublin. “Honestly, I don’t care if people like the film, or if they hate it. I know it’s a divisive film. You have to embrace that.”
It’s a lesson that’s been hard-learned by the Irish director. Having poured his heart and soul into Charlie Casanova – a dark, twisted tale of a murderous sociopath that acts as a commentary of Ireland’s class divide – his script was rejected again and again. In desperation, the director posted a plea for volunteers on Facebook. “Immediately I was mortified, thinking, ‘God, what if no-one replies, I’ve made a fool of myself!”
Within 24 hours 130 people had responded. Charlie Casanova was on its way. With borrowed equipment, a frankly insane two-week shooting schedule and Hollyoaks’ star Emmet Scanlon playing the bombastic, arrogant titular role, the pressure was on for the cast and crew to deliver the film that Terry had envisioned. Because for McMahon, this film isn’t just a thriller. It’s a much-needed commentary on society in Ireland.
“Everything Charlie says is a lie, designed to get whatever he wants out of you. And like every standard psychopath, he will fake an emotion and use words, an articulation, twisting his phrasing until it has the desired impact. I see politicians do it all the time. And I’ve seen a lot of Charlies, particularly in the past few years.
“And I’m not suggesting that working-class is good and upper-class is bad. That’s a load of bollocks,” he continues. “There’s great and shit in both classes. I did see a level of violence in the language of the upper class that I’d never seen before. It manifested in a couple of instances, like the death outside of Annabel’s nightclub. That’s a clear, obvious example but it’s also about that question of what it means to be a man, this white-collar boxing thing. Does being a man mean you’re a constant fuck-machine capable of beating the shit out of somebody? The working-class go through this from a very young age. Charlie’s class experience is later. It’s like a late onset maturity that allows them to go, ‘I want to feel like a man, to know what it’s like not to be frightened.’ To me, it was a very clear metaphor for what’s happening in this country. I wrote it five years ago.”
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