Film Reviews

Pavee Lackeen

• Rating:
• Director: Perry Ogden
• Starring: Winnie Maughan
• Details: Ireland, 90mins, PG.

Pavee Lackeen tells the story of a ten-year-old traveller girl Winnie Maughan as she spends her day getting into scraps at school, mooching around her dilapidated trailer with her sick mother and visiting her brother in jail. When she does get time to herself, Winnie enjoys hanging around the shops in town and sniffing the odd bottle of petrol. First time writer-director Perry Ogden presents an unflinching and rather bleak look at the life of a young traveller girl and showing that there is not much to do, these kids are turning to crime to give their lives a little kick. Ogden's style is that of organised chaos as he never once intrudes on the action and lets improvisation give the impression that Pavee Lackeen is a documentary and it certainly feels that way with the hand-held camera and the frequent ad-lib scenes. Ogden and his co-writer Mark Veneer avoid stereotypical confrontations between settled folk and the travelling community and instead bring a different story to the screen - when Winnie visits the local shops, she isn't treated with prejudice or as an outsider but as a ten-year-old girl. With a high number of foreign nationals appearing in the film, Pavee Lackeen raises the point that the travelling community are treated like foreigners in their own country.

Review by Gavin Burke