The Irish Patient

In 1996, British director, Anthony Minghella, had a massive hit with his film, The English Patient, a tale of love, lust and the horror of war set in Italy towards the end of World War 11. The film, which won nine Academy Awards, and deservedly so, and starred Ralph Fiennes. The film depicted the triumph of love in the midst of the torture and terror of war that engenders awful depravity in human beings. .
We are reminded of that thought-provoking film this week by the announcement that the Irish Film Institute has commissioned a film to be called The Irish Patient. This has no connection with the above film or novel.
The film is set in Ireland, a wealthy country located in northwest Europe. The film, which has an over-18 rating, will in our view, find it difficult to pass the scrutiny of the Film Censorship Board such is the high content level of horror and violence.
The plot is a little far-fetched to sustain credibility. It is based on a 1981 novel by noted fantasy author C.J. Haughey, (1925-2006) called The Tightening of the Belt. Producer, Albert Ahern, a confessed fan of all Haugheys’s works, has allowed considerable artistic licence to director Mary Harney to expand the theme.
Harney is, of course, well known from previous hit movies such as No More Smoking Chimney Stacks (1987) which really got her noticed in LA. She got two Oscar nominations for the 1998 unforgettable thriller that struck terror into the heart of taxi drivers in much the same way as Fatal Attraction did to wandering husbands, Deregulate the Bastards! This really set her on her way to success.
The Irish Patient portrays what can happen to a wealthy, smug, middle-class society when a very rare virus, called HSE, breaks out in this island nation of four million people.
HSE is a disease of the brain, thought to have originated in the island of Madagascar, off the African coast. Returning missionaries and health care workers unwittingly bring the disease into Ireland where it wreaks havoc in a chilling and most unusual way. HSE is a selective killer attacking the brain of medical and administrative health workers and Government civil servants. Death is a slow tortuous process as the brain cells melt away over a prolonged period. We do not want to spoil the cinema experience for our readers by giving away too much of the storyline, but suffice it to say that this is not for the faint-hearted. As the HSE attacks the brain, delusion combined with denial of this delusion creeps into the unfortunate victim. Doctors imagine that they are working in the Third World and act accordingly. They complain that their equipment is out of date, some of it is twenty years old, they shriek maddeningly. Health officials, meanwhile, are affected by particularly virulent strains of HSE causing them to close down hospitals and refuse admission to those whom the doctors deem not sick enough. But - and here is where Harney excels at twisting the knife and subjecting the viewer to mental agony - the doctors are no longer able to judge whether their patients are well or not. Their brains are disintegrating and they no longer have the ability to function properly. Chaos reigns and there are some terrible scenes which fully justify the over-18 cert.
Patients lie moaning and screaming on trolleys, the hospital cleaners won’t do any cleaning and stench and filth emanate from the operating theatres. Hospital porters become so deluded that they think they are now radiologists, and in a particularly harrowing chapter of the film, hundreds of women are recalled because they were given incorrect results of breast cancer screens, analyzed presumably by the porters. Unfortunate women are now told that they have cancer having been given the all clear months earlier. Scenes of heartbreak and emotion are too much to take at times, but Harney is gifted at projecting fantasy as reality. However, she may in some peoples eyes have overstepped the mark with The Irish Patient, and many critics feel it is not ethical to project such unrealistic images.
The disease spreads quickly throughout the country. Riots and panic erupt in the mid-west and the police are forced to baton charge an angry crowd in Westport. Many people are injured but unfortunately there are no ambulances to bring them to hospital as the medical administrators, now in the last throes of the awful disease, refuse to put fuel in the ambulances and instead put the funds into their pension plans. We would be acting unfairly to reveal any more of the plot but suffice it to say it gets worse.
Ahern, the producer, has stated to Variety magazine that he feels The Irish Patient is his best work, but the critics have savaged the movie, branding it as implausible and too much over the top for a horror movie. Ahern has taken umbrage at such criticism and threatened not to make any more movies. He indicated that was going to retire at 60 anyway, and said he didn’t give a damn what the critics and film goers thought about him.
As for Harney, given her previous success with unlikely material – Don’t Tell The Tanaiste springs to mind - do not be surprised if The Irish Patient horror movie defies the critics and is a box office success.
All we can say is just hope that the HSE bug never becomes a reality.
Sleep well!