Ondine

In a beautifully somber scene along the Irish coast, where choppy graywaves reflect the gray massing clouds, a rusty trawler bobs along under thestark hills bordering the shore. A lonely fisherman mans the wheel and mindsthe nets, attended only by wheeling sea gulls. Hoisting up what he takes for aheavy burden of fish, he picks out a strange shape through the darkness in thesoggy net, a woman dredged up from the murk.

With Ondine, Irishwriter-director Neil Jordan (The CryingGame) weaves a fairy tale from theCeltic twilight into the dim shadow-lands of now. The melancholy fisherman, Syracuse (sad-eyed Colin Farrell at his best), and hisimaginative little girl, Annie (a marvelously unaffected performance by AlisonBarry), come to believe that the woman, Ondine (Alicja Bachleda), is aselkiethe mermaid-like seal women that fisherfolk once spotted swimming amongthe misty inlets of Ireland.

Syracuse’s catch is mysteriousindeed, as she speaks English with a faraway accent and knows little about thesociety in which she finds herself. When Ondine sings her bewitching song, sheseems to draw fish to Syracuse’snets while gently stroking the strings of his heart. The unhappy man wonderswhat wondrous and terrible forces are stirring. Could Ondine be running fromsomeone or something? And what will the villagers, especially his unhappyalcoholic ex-wife, think about the strange, beautiful woman living in his oldcottage? With no one to talk to, he offers his story as a confession to theweary, grumbling parish priest.

Maintaining a low key even through the head-butting violence at theclimax, director Jordan manages to pass easily between magic and realism,transforming a mossy, decaying corner of our contemporary world into ametaphorical fairy tale.