Random Passage
by John N. Smith
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Andy Jones, Colm Meaney, Darragh Kelly, Jessica Par, Mary WalshDirector: John N. Smith
Brand: BFS ENT and Multimedia Limi
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 360 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-08
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Bfs Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Random Passage
Movie Review: Earthy, Honest and Fairly Accurate Drama
Summary: 5 Stars
Setting: Cape Random, Newfoundland, a tiny cod fishing station barely clinging to life.
Plot: In 1815, two unlikely families almost literally wash ashore. Mary Keane (Darragh Kelly), a young Irish woman with her illegitimate daughter comes as a stowaway. Mary has been tossed out of her home, watched her mother starve to death, and been raised in the Workhouse under the vilest conditions. Finally getting away as a maid, she is sexually confronted by her new master, then tossed into the streets. Her 'protector', a worthless wharf rat, impregnates her, gets her wrongly implicated in a murder, and then connives to strand her at Cape Random.
Meanwhile, the largish Andrews family comes ashore seeking not-to-be-had succor for a member, en route to a hoped-for new life after the paterfamilias (Andy Jones)lost his situation for pilferage.
These two families strain the meager resources of Station chief Thomas (Colm Meaney) and the one other family there.
This gritty, earthy Canadian-Irish miniseries realistically tackles issues of bondage, extermination of the indigenous Indians, starvation, disease, insanity, God, pregnancy, adultery and you name it as the tiny band moves from total subsistence to a bare semblance of civilization.
The series is well-acted, and well-directed. Not too much stock footage used despite an obviously modest budget. This series is well-worth a watch or two. If you like human drama, detailed 'real people' historic sagas, or the setting, this is recommended.
Comparison: Less odd and artsy than The Shipping News, less idealized and more older-times than The Bird Artist.
The DVD: Boxed set of two discs, each w. two 1.5 hr. parts. Decent audio and picture, few special features of note.
SPECIAL NOTE: This reviewer is 100% ethnic Newfie and NOT a young man. He remembers his own Grandmother Wagg, born within living memory of the times portrayed, telling many similar tales.
Nitpick: Episode Three has an encounter circa 1830 with a Beothuk native; If my memory serves, my own Newfie ancestors had, regrettably, killed them all well before this.
Summary of Random Passage
"...it seethes with raw personal drama." ? The Globe and MailWINNER - Best Photography - Gemini Awards / WINNER - Best Actress - Gemini Awards / NOMINEE - Best Actor - Gemini Awards / NOMINEE - Best Supporting Actress - Gemini Awards / NOMINEE - Outstanding Achievement - Directors Guild of Canada Team Award
Directed by Gemini Award Winning and Oscar Nominated Director John N. Smith
An epic tale of love and survival
This award winning miniseries traces the difficult passage of young Mary Keane (Aoife McMahon) from servitude in Ireland to the squalor of rough-and-tumble Newfoundland in the early 1800s. Escaping attempted rape and abuse, Mary moves on with her infant daughter to find shelter at a remote fishing station run by Thomas Hutchings (Colm Meaney ? Layer Cake, Kings). In a time and place where life and death are a hair?s breadth apart, Mary joins the community?s struggle for survival against sickness and starvation. All of the Cape?s people are fugitives of one kind or another, but by pulling together through hardships and tragedies, they forge a new life of hope ? and even love.
approx. 6 hrs.
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