“Mists of Time” by award-winning filmmaker Patrick Carey is now available to watch for free on the Irish Film Institute’s IFI Player.
The Irish Film Institute (IFI) says that Mists of Time is a poetic, visual portrait of the mythology surrounding Ireland’s megalithic tombs and standing stones.
The monumental dolmen and passage graves of Ireland, once burial grounds from the Late Stone Age, are depicted alongside tales of the pagan Halloween festival, Samhain, in this video featured in the IFI’s Patrick Carey Collection.
Dramatic cinematography depicting sunsets and tombs at the Burren, Country Clare, and Newgrange, County Meath (Ireland’s best-known passage grave) is underscored by the music of Brian Boydell.
About The Patrick Carey Collection
Patrick (better known as Paddy) Carey was born in London in 1916. His family moved to Dublin in 1923, where he studied painting at art school before returning to London. Carey began to work as a photographer and cameraman on nature programmes and documentaries both nationally and internationally, including documenting Edmund Hillary’s Everest descent in 1953. He moved to Canada with his wife Vivien to avail of documentary production opportunities offered by the National Board of Canada. He was hired as a cinematographer on the Oscar-nominated and BAFTA-winning Journey into Spring (1957) and on the Oscar-nominated The Living Stone (1959). Carey would continue to work as a second unit camera operator throughout his life on films such as Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975) and Black Beauty (1971) as well as second unit director on Fred Zinnemann’s A Man For All Seasons (1966).
In the early 1960s, Carey returned to Ireland and established Aengus Films with Vivien in 1964. He filmed and directed primarily short, pictorial, landscape films commissioned by the Department of External Affairs. His first film, Yeats Country (1965) achieved huge international recognition and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1966. This was followed by a series of lyrical and evocative films depicting the landscape, flora, and fauna of Ireland. This collection delves into a range of subjects: Ireland’s pagan festival Samhain and megalith tombs in Mists of Time; the tale of Oisín, son of Celtic warrior Fionn MacCumhaill; a battle of Donegal mountains in Errigal; the relentless landscape of the west of Ireland in Waves; traditional, rural daily life in Reflections – Ireland; and a study of the Beara Peninsula in Beara. He returned to Canada in the early 1970s and continued to work in Britain, Ireland, Canada, and the United States for the rest of his life.
Paddy Carey’s observational and reflective work was filmed with the eye of a practised artist. Mesmerising close-ups of eddying rock pools, crashing waves, misty mountain peaks, and breath-taking sunsets are presented without geographic specificity. The films do not follow an educational form more common in recent nature documentary. Many are non-narrated with soundscape provided simply by remarkable audio recordings of nature, and, occasionally, scores by Irish musicians such as Brian Boydell and Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains. Locations are unpopulated and largely devoid of signs of human intervention in a romantic projection of Ireland which begs further appreciation and respect for the landscape.
The video below is published with thanks to the Irish Film Institute (IFI), who IrishCentral have partnered up with throughout 2020 to bring you a taste of what their remarkable collection entails. You can find all IrishCentral articles and videos from the IFI here.
To watch more historic Irish footage, visit the IFI Player, the Irish Film Institute’s virtual viewing room that provides audiences around the globe free, instant access to Irish heritage preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive. Irish Culture from the last century is reflected through documentaries, animation, adverts, amateur footage, feature films, and much more. You can also download the IFI Player Apps for free on iPhone, Android, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Roku.
IrishCentral has partnered up with the IFI throughout 2020 to bring you a taste of what their remarkable collections entail. You can find all IrishCentral articles and videos from the IFI here.
