Fréwaka (a phonetic version of the Irish word Fréamhaca, meaning “roots”) follows Shoo (Clare Monnelly), a home care worker who takes a job in a remote Irish village to care for Peig, an agoraphobic elderly woman haunted by her experiences in a Catholic asylum & her belief in sinister entities. We spoke with the writer-director, Aislinn Clarke, to find out more about her haunting exploration of folklore and generational trauma.
Where did the idea for the film come from?
I had written Doineann, an Irish-language film that Damian McCann directed. It’s the only time I have written for another director, but I like Damian, and he did a good job of it. Then the producers of that asked me if I would be interested in writing and directing a horror film in Irish. I was raised with Irish language. It was a big thing for my dad; he died nearly 10 years ago. I wanted to do it, but it needed to have a reason to be in Irish, and I didn’t want it to be gimmicky. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it at first because I wanted to come up with the right thing. Then the idea just came from my admittedly very subjective lens on where Irish people are right now, the moment that we’re in, how I see all of the trauma upon trauma that we’ve had heaped upon us that we’re well aware of, but we’ve shoved under the rug. We put on this very friendly, open face out in the world; we are good craic and all that. But have we actually dealt with any of this really? So that’s where it came from, me, wanting to make it something that was Irish at its core.
Peig powerfully addresses the trauma experienced by Irish people, and your approach to it is fascinating.
I think that’s what horror does really well. It can deal with social trauma. You’re using metaphor, and there’s the artifice of the pretend world you’ve created. It’s a more indirect and, therefore, more effective way of dealing with these things. That’s one of my favourite scenes, and it’s so beautifully performed by Bríd and Clare. I love how they handled that, and I’m glad it resonated with you because I think that’s the heart of it. It’s nice in horror films when you can have a little moment where you say, this is what it’s about, that’s who we are, and we’re trauma upon trauma.
These two women are strong despite their damage. They defy the typical Scream Queen trope and the usual horror characters. How crucial was it for you to portray these well-rounded women in horror?
It was really important. I’m not into all [horror], and I like real human beings in a situation that drives them to the extreme. That’s what I like about horror and that sort of genre. Performance is really important. To get really good performances, you have to write really human characters, and they have to be cast well. We were supremely lucky with the cast. Everything hinges on that because, with horror, you are dealing with made-up stuff, right? Whereas drama, you can more easily fall into it. It represents the real world. Horror has so much artifice that you need to be able to fall into that world properly. So, real human beings and really good performances are crucial for me, and that’s the type of horror that I enjoy and want to make.
Peig is so wily. She is not how we often see older women depicted on screen. How much of that came from Bríd? Did she bring any of that naturally to the performance, or was that who you wanted Peig to be?
Peig was written as quite spiky. I like women characters like that because that’s my experience of the actual world. I think everybody knows that the Irish mammy runs everything. We can talk about patriarchy all we want, but we know the whole ship is going to stop if the women aren’t taking care of everything. So, I think the reality of Irish women is that they are quite forceful and have a good sense of humour. I wanted to represent the truth of what I see in the women around me in the world, but Bríd is phenomenal. She’s very different from Peig in her personality. Bríd is really a very elegant person, and she’s very gentle, she’s very considered and intelligent. She’s not as spiky as Peig, but she really brought her to life phenomenally; both of them, [Bríd and Clare], just became those people. It’s such a pleasure when that happens.
The film is a merging of two worlds. The town is old-fashioned, and the mythology is rich, but we see signs of a new Ireland with a same-sex couple and a character from Ukraine. Talk to me about the importance of the mix.
That’s how I see Ireland; it’s like there are these two competing forces. So, on the one hand, primarily in the cities, you have this very progressive Ireland, a melting pot scenario. Especially right now, for some reason, Ireland feels like it’s very much at the forefront of culture and very progressive, whereas there is this other part of Ireland that is very rooted and, as it always has been, very traditional, and the film is really about the two those two worlds colliding. The nice thing about Claire’s character is that she thinks she’s one thing and Peig is the other, but they meet, and its sort of like a love story. They really grow to love each other. They find that they’re much more similar than they thought.
Claire and Bríd have fantastic chemistry. Did that come together naturally, or did you work with them to create it?
That’s just how it worked out. We’re extremely fortunate because we didn’t have much rehearsal time. We spent half a day or something like that but didn’t have much extensive rehearsal time. Having done theatre in the past, I like rehearsal, but we didn’t have it on this. They hadn’t worked together before either, but they just gelled, got along, and made it work. But yeah, the chemistry was just there, which is extremely fortunate.
The film features a third lead character: the house. Although we often see the same houses used repeatedly in Irish films, I didn’t recognize this one.
That was crucial to me. I didn’t want this to feel like it was set somewhere. I didn’t want people to say, oh, that’s Wicklow or Louth, so I didn’t want to use a house people have seen before. This was the first place we looked at. The producer found it and said, you have to look at this house. He didn’t know I grew up near there and had been in the house before. It was a marvellous find. The family still live there, but it hasn’t been in anything else, so it feels completely alien. You won’t have the Irish people sitting there going, oh, I know where that is, my cousin’s wedding was there.
Horror is one of the last genres in which we see female directors working. Was that in any way a stumbling block when you applied for funding for this, or did you get a supportive response?
I don’t think the fact that I’m a woman really comes into that. It was more that because this was TG4’s Cine4 fund that also did The Quiet Girl. They had found their feet with drama, and it was more that they were scared of horror. They hadn’t really done. They had done a horror film, As Gaeilge, in 2010, but they weren’t really sure about this. So, it was more about reticence about that than it was about me being a woman. Women love horror, and there are loads of women making such good stuff these days.
The score is stunning. I am still haunted by the sound of the horn. Was it a collaborative process with Die Hexen, or did you trust her to create something for you?
It’s a bit of both. I trust inherently that Die is going to do a brilliant job. I did say I wanted a carnyx, which is an old Celtic horn. I wanted this sense of the ancient and the real things we had back in the day. I explained where I was coming from in a very abstract sense, and I knew Die would do something brilliant, which is what happened. Die is a genius.
You mentioned the ancient element of it. Was that something you needed to research, or were you already familiar with it?
I was raised in a Gaelscoil and heard all the old myths. Irish myths were always word of mouth; Every teller has their own little spin on it. I didn’t research because I wanted it to be my misremembers and my twist to be part of it. I quite pointedly did not [research]. There are probably all sorts of things in there that folklorists will say are not quite right, but sorry, it is because that’s how we’ve always told them.
The film has received positive feedback at festivals. What does that mean to you?
Oh, it’s everything. First of all, the film exists in your head, and you think everybody’s going to hate it. Then you have a whole team that works in it, and then you’re a bit encouraged because they like it, but then you’re so scared when it comes to the public, and are they going to like it? Are they going to hate it? It’s terrifying. Frankly, that’s really scary. It’s great when it finds people that respond to it, and they get it, and it’s really what you do it for, for people to say, I saw your film. I really liked it. That’s the entire point. So, it’s everything.
What would you like audiences to take away from the film?
‘I’d like them to think a little bit about their own trauma, their own families, and their own history and take a moment to reflect on that instead of always just putting on a brave face and being good craic and feeling the need to perform happiness and joy if they’re not exactly feeling it right now.
Interview by Cara O’Doherty