By Will Barber Taylor
Depicting childhood and in particular the complex mixture of joy, heartbreak and sadness that often colours it can be a difficult task for any director to truly capture. We are often compelled to see childhood as black or white, either filled with unabashed innocence and happiness at life or one filled with memories we would rather forget.
Yet in Saoirse Ronan’s debut short film she perfectly captures the truth that many people experience complex childhoods that are both joyous and have moments of tension and sadness. There is in Ronan’s script a beautiful reality and sensitivity to her writing of the characters of Fay (Martha Malone) our central protagonist and her mother (Clare Dunne). Fay’s use of the titular paper planes to communicate has a real poetical beauty to it – as they soar through the air, they represent Fay’s hope, dreams and fears. Ronan’s ability to convey so much through the visual language of film speaks to her understanding of film as a medium. Too often, directors and writers fail to understand how much can be said in cinema through the language of a look or a particular shot composition when often so much more can be told through the moving image than can be more clunkily conveyed through the dialogue that sometimes saturates cinema. Ronan’s script understands when to let the audience understand something via a silent shot or when a piece or dialogue is more appropriate.
The interplay between Fay’s home and its domestic, conformist and suffocating nature and the great outdoors that Fay revels in is skilfully directed by Ronan. She uses cinematographer Kate McCullough’s talents incredibly well to show how nature and the eternal freedom of it can be far more appealing than the home that Fay wishes to run away from. Freedom and hope lie outside for Fay as shown in the sequence in which she dances with Mam in the garden and in the final shot of the film of them running together through the woods. The contrast between the bright sparkle of the outside and the bleak inner world of Fay’s home is deftly shown by Ronan as is the shots of the paper planes themselves flying through the air. Ronan’s direction has the same subtly, creative ingenuity and sensitivity that her writing has.
The performances by both Martha Malone and Clare Dunne are stunning to see. Dunne is able to express perfectly the torn sense that a mother can have towards her child, the desire to both confront the pain that can sometimes accompany childhood and try and distract her from it. Dunne does this with real skill. Her conveying of Mam’s despair as Fay refuses to come inside after their dance in the garden is incredibly touching and Dunne is startling in her believability. Martha Malone is equally compelling as Fay; she brings out Fay’s emotions perfectly and gives the audience a real insight into her character’s inner pain – that Malone is able to convey so much through facial expressions and her use of her eyes demonstrates the immense capabilities of both the actress and her director.
Paper Plane is a remarkable film in how it translates childhood anxieties to the screen. It has a real sensitivity at its heart and has a meaningful message to convey that it does so with eloquence and creativity. It is a film that is sure to make a lasting impression on anyone who sees it.
