Traveller

Michael is seventeen years old, Angela is sixteen. They are travellers, wanderer. They are Irish, they live out of odd jobs and are forced to get married against their will. When they are sent to Northern Ireland to buy a radio and some other valuable objects and to introduce them illegally into the “free state”, they feel for the first time to be attracted from each other. After they have an accident with a borrowed car, Michael is forced to ask for help and decides to rob a post office. On their way back, through the landscapes, the ruins and the historic past of Ireland, Michael and Angela make some clumsy attempts to get closer.
During an argument on the refund of the damage of the car and of the broken wares, Michael accidentally kill Angela’s father, but without regrets. They board to go to England together with Clicky, a “republican” whose story is really connected to theirs, especially for the attention he has towards Angela.
Traduzione in inglese Francesca Sala – English translation Francesca Sala

Both of their fathers embody two aspects of the nomadic culture. The boy’s father has a traditional job and is poor: he’s poor because people don’t buy what he sells anymore and horse-trading doesn’t yield a return because nobody owns lands. Angela’s father, instead, belongs to a generation of businessmen. They both are materialist, but the thought of property is stronger in Angela’s father and it doesn’t stop even in front of her daughter. He takes advantage from a situation that is happening in another part of the country. Men like Angela’s father don’t want to be called nomadic: they think of themselves as retailers, while their only job is usury…
I wanted to make a film on a couple that can’t communicate. In every movie, at a certain moment of their personal relationships, people come to a mutual agreement, sometimes it is silent and sometimes it is clear. I wanted to maintain this non-communication until the end of the film. It is something that goes through the whole Irish society.
The feminist movement changed something in nomadic women. Angela uses Clicky to slip away; anyway they’re not yet to the point where a “travelling woman” can freely and independently move around. (…)
I wanted to show a nomadic couple who develops from a starting situation of backwardness and people in England, in Australia or in America wouldn’t even think of them as Irish nomads, but only Irish. The clothes and the manners they have now should be enough to survive in those societies; as a matter of fact, they can’t go to Dublin. First of all, they won’t have a survival base there, and then they would be recognized as nomadic.
Joe Comerford
Traduzione in inglese Francesca Sala – English translation Francesca Sala

Director and editor: Joe Comerford.
Director assistant: Liam Mulcahy.
Screenplay: Neil Jordan.
Director of photography: Thaddeus O'Sullivan (16mm, colore).
Assistente operatore: Cathal Black.
Music: Davy Spillane, Mary Delaney, Francie Brolly.
Sound: John Anderton, Pat Hayes.
Cast and characters: Judy Donovan (Angela), Davy Spillane (Michael), Alan DevIin (Clicky), Marian Richardson (voce di Angela), Johnny Choil Mhaidhic (Devine), Paddy Donovan (Connors), Joe Pilkington, Nora Donovan, Christy Howley, Roisin O'Hehier, Mick Tully, Tiffy Moilan.
Production company: Margaret Williams / British Film Institute.