Clodagh

You don’t have to have grown up around Irish (or Scottish) Catholicism to appreciate Oscar-shortlisted short film Clodagh, but it helps.

Wherever you are, the chances are that you’ve met somebody like Mrs Kelly (Bríd Ní Neachtain). We see her first polishing the black, shiny shoes used by traditional dancers; then hoovering the church; then working in its small back kitchen. Taking a break for a moment to make herself a cup of tea, she’s about to add sugar, then decides against it. She may or may not be dieting for health reasons; what is clearly important to her is following rules. Later, when she’s introduced to a new girl whose father wants to get her into the dance class, even just temporarily, she wipes gold glitter off the child’s face. “We’ll have no Dallas, Texas here.”

The girl is Clodagh, and although she’s shy at first, she turns out to have a talent the likes of which Mrs. Kelly has rarely, if ever, seen. it’s a treat for viewers to watch, shot without fuss in the unadorned church hall to the sound of a single fiddle. The camera whirls around her, capturing her joy as she dances. We hear the click of the shoes, which she has had to borrow, on the hard wooden floor. Even Mrs. Kelly cannot help but be moved by this. She’s also impressed by the girl’s humility, and touched by the tragedy in her past. Could this child be somebody for whom she is prepared to break rules?

Essentially a character study, the film finds a sly humour in its observations of Mrs Kelly’s dilemma, of the quietly frantic way in which she wrestles with a conscience at odds with the rigid system she has chosen to live by. A priest seems cheered when he overhears her humming the tune that Clodagh danced to, and she immediately apologises. She’s distraught at being unable to get it out of her head. Later she catches sight of a little shimmer of golden glitter that remains on her hand.

There’s tragedy, inescapably, in lives like Mrs Kelly’s, but this is an optimistic film, holding out the hope that anyone can change, soften a little. It presents a kind of bleakness in which the smallest chink of light can be dazzling – and lead, perhaps, to illumination.