Writer-director Christopher Andrews told David Hennessy about Bring Them Down, his debut feature that is in cinemas now.
Bring Them Down is in cinemas now.
Christopher Andrews’ debut feature film is a rural tale of revenge.
The American actor Christopher Abbott as Michael O’Shea. Abbott is recognisable from his award- nominated turn in the film James White and series such as Girls, The Sinner and The Crowded Room as well as new horror, Wolf Man.
The supporting cast includes Barry Keoghan, Colm Meaney, Nora- Jane Noone, Paul Ready, Aaron Heffernan and Susan Lynch.
Michael has his plate full with looking after the family farm, the flock and his paraplegic father (Meaney).
When a neighbouring farming family say they found two of the family’s rams dead on their land, he goes to the mart to buy fresh stock.
However he discovers the neighbours Jack (Keoghan) and his father Gary (Ready) are selling animals and two of them look familiar.
Called out for what they have done, the other family will not return the animals. Instead it starts a war between neighbours.
There has always been bad blood between Michael and the other family. As a teenager and in a rage, he crashed a car killing his own mother and badly scarring his girlfriend at the time (Noone) who is now Gary’s wife.
The film is almost completely in the Irish language so when Abbott agreed to take on the role, he committed to not only getting the accent right but also learn the language. There was also commitment from writer/ director Andrews who is from Manchester but has Irish heritage on both sides of his family with relatives from Kerry and Belfast.
We set down with Christopher Andrews when he was in Kilburn last week for a special preview screening at the Kiln on the eve of the film’s nationwide release. The film also closed the Irish Film Festival London last year.
Where did the idea for this film come from? What first inspired it?
“It was being in the Lake District and seeing this shepherd walk on the Coniston old man.
“We were all in walking boots and Gore- Tex, and these guys march up and down there every day in just rigger boots and a jacket you get from army navy stores with their dog.
“The way that they could move across the landscape, they were just really impressive but singular characters.
“I was also taking Bible stories and sort of messing with them, twisting them around and I thought about the parable of the Good Shepherd and what would happen if once you go back up to rescue this lost soul, someone comes and messes with your flock?
“That’s where it tied in with the things that were really happening.
“And then that, in itself, sort of leads to this idea of revenge.
“What would you do?
“I’ve always, always really loved revenge movies, especially the 70s revenge movies but the problem I had with them is that there was always a good, right person and a wrong person, a right way and wrong way, and that’s not what I understand humans to be.
“It’s not how I understand myself.
“I’m not a good person, I’m not a bad person.
“I make mistakes. I do good things. I do wrong things.
“I fall short but I try.
“I was really keen to subvert the idea of the revenge thriller and show both sides of the tale and see if you can pull an audience into the drama and the tension inside that.”
That was exactly a note I made watching the film, ‘There are two sides to every story’..
At the outset Jack and Gary are clearly in the wrong but when the perspective is flipped, you can see they are also struggling..
“It’s part of the human condition.
“It’s difficult to see the other person, whoever that may be, even when you’re walking down the street, driving or you’re stood in a queue.
“It’s very easy to dehumanise people and not understand what they might be carrying.
“We’re so sort of focused on our own situation and what we need to do.
“It’s just posing that question for the characters but also for the audience and for myself.
“It sort of leans into Western tropes as well and Greek mythology.
“These things are all interlinked because they’re all created out of our desires to understand things.
“It’s the purest form of storytelling so there are similarities across all of these different things that kind of gives it a mythic kind of sensibility.
“I think, looking at it now, it was very important to root it in the west of Ireland with the language and the way of shepherding.
“For monetary reasons, we had to shoot it in in the east of Ireland and I think somewhere between those two decisions and the type of storytelling, it creates its own kind of mythic world where it feels very Irish but it also feels very unique.”
The film depicts a ghastly act of cutting the legs of sheep to make a quick pound, is that a real thing that happens?
“Yeah, I was in the Lake District and we were walking around.
“I was thinking about how amazing the landscape was and how underutilised it is in British and Irish cinema.
“And around that time, there was a spate of them in Cumbria and then some in Derbyshire where these gangs were going around and cutting the hind legs off of the sheep and just letting them bleed out in fields- Not on the scale of what we did, it was three or four but still, that’s a few hundred quid. An organic leg of lamb is like 45 quid and you don’t have to worry about the rest of it.
“I think what struck me was more the fact that they just left it laid out.
“It just felt really barbaric and needlessly cruel.”
The film is in Irish for the most part.
The language is having a resurgence with An Cailín Ciúin etc, was it always important to you to have it in there?
“Yeah, completely.
“I mean, I did a lot of research, travelling down the west of Ireland and meeting shepherds and farmers and people that lived down there.
“I was talking to them about the story.
“I was talking to them about their shepherding practices so that we understood that, and each person we met spoke Irish.
“I met one farmer and English was his first language, everyone else, it (Irish) was their first language. It was his second, he still spoke Irish so it felt really important that that was kind of rooted in that space.
“There’s a lot about heritage and legacy and looking backwards and what we protect.
“The O’Sheas in the story are protecting things and looking backwards without thinking about the future or the present in certain ways.
“But in other ways, the way that they protect their language and their culture is really important.
“There’s a lot of discussion in the film about war, what it takes to finish a war once you start a war and this idea of English being an invasive language and something that’s eroding a language and a culture and their sort of preservation of that, I think, is a really important and really powerful part of heritage and legacy and something that’s important to fight for, you know?
“Again, they’re holding on to so much that they’re not able to see the shades of what is important and what is less important.”
Sounds like you were aware of how important the whole language was so there was nothing half hearted about the way you, and actor Christopher Abbott, did it..
“No, he dived in.
“And of all the things that he had to do, that was the hardest, I think, and also the biggest point of anxiety for both- certainly for him, for me as well but I believed that he would get there.
“We were working with this brilliant dialect coach and I knew that they would get there as long as Chris did the work.
“We had a massive, great, big conversation about everything to do and it was the one thing that was left until the end.
“And it was like, ‘So, the language? What do you think?’
“Because I knew after talking to him and the way that he talks about the process and character and his way of accessing a character in a role that he’s really smart so he isn’t going to do something that he doesn’t think that he can do, or thinks that it’s a reach too far so I allowed him to counter and said, ‘Look, we can support you all the way through’.
“Chris is really hard working and meticulous about how he approaches these things.
“There has been examples of people attempting, not even going as far as the language but the accent and falling quite a long way short.
“That’s not a good place to be and he didn’t want to be in that space.
“And he was brilliant.”
You must be delighted with the cast you assembled..
“Oh, yeah.
“I mean every single one.
“I mean Chris and Barry are obviously the standouts, and Colm is somebody that people know and is amazing.
“But Nora-Jane Noone is extraordinary.
“She has to carry so much.
“The other two female roles are so much smaller, she’s a real counterbalance and just extraordinary.
“I love working with her.
“And Paul Ready.
“He can do anything, that guy.”
Paul Ready is unrecognisable in this film to those who might know his loveable wimp Kevin from Motherland..
“He’s amazing.
“Again, the accent and getting this sort of rural Derry twang that I think is really spot on, and just the way that he can go from being incredibly vulnerable and broken to this kind of rageful, stubborn, violent human being is just extraordinary.
“I think the way that he played that is so good.
“People take it for granted when someone’s so special.
“And then Aaron Heffernan goes from being bumbling and funny into full on sociopath in a blink of an eye.
“It’s kind of extraordinary.”
Let’s talk about Barry specifically for a moment, what’s he like to work with? Can you see why his star has risen so high and so quickly?
“Yeah, completely.
“I’ve been aware of Barry for an awfully long time.
“I remember really being struck when I watched ‘71 and that was really good performances throughout but when he came on, it was just something different, something special.
“He’s really, really instinctive.
“He’s really emotionally intelligent.
“He offers you something different every time which is a way that I like to approach working with actors and the way that we let scenes and characters grow.
“The way that he can sort of just embody a character is really special.”
There’s an important theme in the story and we see it with Christopher’s character.
In a small town or in a rural place- and probably everywhere to some extent- You can’t ever really escape what you’re known for. If it’s crashing a car when you’re a teenager, you will always be reminded of that. You simply can’t escape your your past or your past trauma…
“Yeah, it’s hard to shake.
“Once you define who you are quite young, it’s hard to evolve and change yourself.
“You can find yourself sort of painted into a corner that maybe doesn’t quite represent you just because you made one decision or you said one thing, or exposed one side of yourself.
“It’s something that I’ve seen affect a lot of people growing up and that was very much part of how we created that world.”
Another thing that can almost seal your fate is the family or the circumstances you’re born into, we see that with the two families in the film..
“I was very interested in this idea of legacy and heritage.
“I was sort of exploring my relationship with my family and examining how I was formed as a person and specifically as a man: These things that you are taught and learn, and sort of learn by osmosis, by watching and feeling the way those formative relationships affect you.
“I was kind of exploring that and examining me and questioning how I was shaped.
“Then, by draft two or three, I became a dad- little boy- and then I was like, ‘How do I plug those holes so the bits I don’t want to seep out stay in me and I don’t allow him to sort of absorb maybe more sort of toxic things that I’ve inherited?’
“And you try and pass on the good stuff.
“It’s difficult because you realise there’s so many different factors in how a little human being is shaped but there’s a strong responsibility and the pressures on people to be parents, to be a provider and to make sure you’ve got food on the table, a roof over your head.
“And in the world that we live in, it’s kind of exhausting, and it’s getting harder the way that we spread out.
“It used to take a village to raise a kid and I think there’s definitely some truth in that.”
Another thing in the film is that it’s never too late for redemption.
It’s never too late to turn around and perhaps make amends, put an end to the fight…
“I’m glad that you said that because it’s quite a tough ride, but that’s something that I wanted. I like to ask questions, I don’t like to tell people what I think because I don’t feel like I have a position to do that.
“It’s not the sort of filmmaking or art or literature that I like: Didactic, ‘This is how it should be. This is how you should think’.
“It’s questioning so then we come to an understanding and think about how we really think about it, then we can make a decision whether that’s right or wrong or how it was informed.
“But yeah, the idea is that there’s always opportunities, it’s never too late.
“There’s always an opportunity to make a situation better and we all have it.
“I believe that we all have it inside.
“So I’m glad that you said that.”
You are going to do Q and A tonight and have no doubt done many up to now, what sort of reactions do you get?
“In terms of the screenings, there’s been two different vibes when you’re in a room: One where it’s taken very seriously and they feel the weight of the story and they’ve experienced the tension and the ride and it’s like they’ve held the breath for the whole film.
“Then there’s another audience.
“I think there’s quite a bit of humour in it in terms of the way that they communicate with each other but also the absurdity and the kind of uncomfortable humour that you get uncomfortable laughter.
“And then once somebody sort of lets that out, the levy breaks and there’s some real laughter, certainly in the last third so that’s been really interesting and really kind of exciting to wonder how it is going to be read and interpreted.
“I guess people have found it quite an intense experience which is great because that’s what I wanted to do, just get hold of people and hit them with different types of tension and suspense and playing with those different ideas and sort of pulling people along this ride.
“People have come out and said that it’s like their stomach has been in knots.
“Somebody told me that I hurt their uterus, there were lots of different physical responses to it.
“Women have come out and been really involved in it, mostly women have come up to to talk to me about how it’s made them feel and thematically how the story is talking to them and then recognising either partners or brothers or fathers or people within the space and found it quite moving for that.
“It’s been really one of the more beautiful things about being around in different countries and meeting people talking about the film.”
Bring Them Down is in theatres now and will stream on MUBI.