Michael Kinirons Explores Tragic Guilt in Drama ‘The Sparrow,’ Cues Up Psychological Thriller ‘The Cellist’
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In his debut feature film, “The Sparrow,” writer-director Michael Kinirons explores the psychological struggle of a teenage boy dealing with unbearable guilt and the exacerbation of his quandary caused by his dysfunctional family situation.
“The Sparrow,” which screens out of competition at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, centers on Kevin (Ollie West), a melancholic boy still grieving for his late mother and finding little consolation from his tough, emotionally distant father (David O’Hara) or from his older brother (Eanna Hardwicke).
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Produced by Tiger Darling, the production shingle Kinirons runs with wife, producer Alicia Ní Ghráinne, the film is set in and around the picturesque West Cork fishing village of Baltimore, located near the southern tip of Ireland.
For Kinirons, whose writing credits include Kim Farrant’s 2015 Australian outback drama “Strangerland,” starring Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes and Hugo Weaving, the unique and beautiful landscape partly inspired his idea for a very human story that echoed the ancient tragedies of myth.
The spectacular coastal landscape – in particular Lough Hyne, Ireland’s only saltwater lake – plays an integral role in the film. “It’s a very beautiful place,” Kinirons says of Lough Hyne. “There’s something about that place … it’s got an essence that’s really interesting.”
It was at the scenic location that Kinirons saw a dream-like image of two boys getting into a fight in a boat, giving rise to the notion that “even in Eden terrible things happen. I wanted to try and get this sort of ‘East of Eden’ feel. There’s something primal about these landscapes where biblical tragedies can happen. This is where Cain and Abel can happen.”
Weaving its way into the material was also the lasting impact of François Truffaut’s 1959 coming-of-age drama “The 400 Blows.”
“When I first saw that in my late teens it just totally opened my mind about what cinema could be.”
Recalling his own rebellious youth, Kinirons sought to make the story both personal and universal.
“I’m the youngest of seven kids and I was pretty feral growing up, shall we say. I was in trouble a lot. And just trying to think back on one of the most important experiences of your life – that feeling of being in trouble all the time was something I knew very well, and I kind of wanted to write about that.”
The film examines the impact a broken family can have on a young person, specifically “dysfunctional male relationships and the absence of the feminine in a household.”
Contemplating the enormity of his transgression, young Kevin finds himself in a nightmare situation, so much so that Kinirons and cinematographer Richard Kendrick sought to imbue the film with elements of atmospheric horror.
“For me, that’s the key to any cinematic experience: the dream – and trying to find stories that are dreamlike in a way. And this was very much a nightmare dream. It has the horrible knot of tension, that feeling in your stomach. We all know what it’s like to have done something really terrible, no matter who we are, and knowing we should own up to it and not being able to is a very relatable but gut-wrenching experience.”
In West, Kinirons found his ideal Kevin. “Ollie was the second kid I saw and he stayed in my mind. He just instinctively knew what to do with his eyes. He instinctively has the kind of thing I like in an actor: he doesn’t want to be an actor. He has no interest in being an actor; he wants to be a musician. But he has this innate confidence. I think it helps that his mom is a theater director and his dad is a playwright, so he has sort of the gene, you know?”
“The camera loves some people. He just has that naturalness, which you’re looking for. There’s no tension. He’s just a very chilled human being.”
Kinirons and Ní Ghráinne have a number of projects in the works at Tiger Darling, including the tentatively titled “The Cellist,” which the director aims to shoot next year.
Describing it as a kind of companion piece to “The Sparrow,” Kinirons says: “It’s much more a, shall we say, Chabrol-esque type film. It’s more ironic, more of a psychological thriller. It’s kind of like ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ meets ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer.’
“It’s about a young man who grew up with nothing who encounters a young man who grew up with everything and there’s a kind of cuckoo-like attempt to take over his life.”
Kinirons is also co-creating with French writer Arnaud Bénoliel the fact-based historical TV series “The Pretender,” about con-artist Perkin Warbeck, who in 1490 managed to pass himself off as the rightful heir to the English throne, becoming an existential threat to the newly established Tudor dynasty.
“It’s basically ‘House of Cards’ meets ‘Catch Me If You Can’ in the 15th century.”
Tiger Darling is developing and set to co-produce the series with Dublin-based Ripple World Pictures.
In addition, Kinirons has completed a screenplay about Lucia Joyce, the daughter of James Joyce, for Irish director Aisling Walsh (“Maudie”).
“Lucia Joyce I think is starting to get her due now,” Kinirons says. While nearly forgotten, she was “a young amazing dancer and choreographer who had a very beautiful, tormented relationship with her dad and ended up in an asylum, very tragically. It’s a story of, again, a thwarted young female artist trying to discover her identity.”
In addition, Tiger Darling joined Lithuania’s Studio Uljana Kim and Latvia’s Studio Locomotive to produce “5 & 1⁄2 Love Stories in an Apartment in Vilnius, Lithuania,” the forthcoming episodic film by Lithuanian director Tomas Vengris (“Motherland”).
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