By Maia Rizzolo Blackman, First Year English and French
Courtesy of Watershed I was kindly invited to watch Blue Road, a documentary by Sinéad O’Shea about Irish Author Edna O'Brien. After the film's credits rolled, I left the screening with one word in my mind: formidable. Edna O’Brien was a truly formidable woman. The film disperses interviews from her later life with buzzy shots of her glamorous life in London or grainy footage of her hometown, and in these interview segments she is impressively lucid despite her age, more eloquent than most people could ever wish to be. Writing and interviewing into her early 90s, O’Brien was clearly a force of nature.
After her final work Girl - a gritty novel about the abduction of schoolgirls by the Boko Haram – she was hailed by the Guardian as ‘more unafraid of experiment and risk than ever’, praise which becomes all the more impressive when you remember she was 88 at the time. O’Brien was clearly also someone who did her homework and wasn’t shy of gleaning from lived experiences; her novel follows the pattern of a real 2014 abduction case, and her research required two trips to Nigeria, such was her desire to be well informed. The praise she received in her later life is a far cry from the ridicule she withstood in her earlier years, seen throughout O’Shea’s documentary.
She was satirised and sexualised on TV, with most of the male writers of the time reducing her to what she compactly terms a ‘literary flibbertigibbet’ for her transgressive, vulnerable prose. Even before her controversial career, O’Brien was a diverse figure, running away from home to marry the older, exciting Ernest Gébler, an act for which she accrued much controversy. Even when discussing it in old age, O’Brien seems impressed by the sheer amount of uproar her abscondment created. The marriage turned sour quickly; inflamed by the sudden and remarkable success of Edna’s first novel The Country Girls, Gébler turned hostile and resentful, even scrawling snide, red-penned comments in Edna’s diary. Declan Colon lends a jeering male voice to read these, meeting Jessie Buckley’s voiceover with a wounding derision.
When Edna refused to keep paying Gébler her royalties, he reacted violently. The marriage reached its bitter culmination and Edna was able to finally move on to bigger and better things – the elegant, albeit taxing life of a writer in London. O’Shea dazzles you with material from Edna’s life in London – Edna slyly discusses her illicit, exciting affairs as shots of unnamed politicians and Hollywood stars like Marlon Brando flash on the screen and Edna is shown embodying the stylish hostess, never without her cigarette in hand. The film is a visual treat, filled with so much archival footage that halfway through watching, you’re struck with gratitude that Edna’s life was so well documented. Even the hallucinogenic sequence is charming, as Edna cheerfully recounts seeing her therapist (the infamous R.D. Laing) turn into a rat wearing a suit.
Whilst much of the film encapsulates the glitz and glamour of Edna’s life in London, it is also coloured by a strong sense of nostalgia. Evocative Super 8 sequences of green fields and hazy Irish sun layered with Jessie Buckley’s lilting voice reading from Edna’s diaries impose this sense of familiarity and O’Shea does impressively well in creating an intimacy with Edna. Being immersed in her personal diaries and seeing her interview so vulnerably makes you feel like you’ve been let in on a special secret, like O’Brien herself is opening up to you; this is the true feat of O’Shea’s work.
The documentary is also a joyful cacophony of noise, Jessie Buckley’s narration bleeding into Edna’s voices, both old and young. Being enveloped in such beautiful words and musical voices is a rare treat for a documentary but serves Edna’s natural prose perfectly – it almost seems nothing else would do. O’Shea has managed to create a lyrical and engaging documentary that showcases one of our most brilliant writers that too few people know about – even watching it feels like uncovering a hidden gem. It is, in all, a truly interesting film about a truly interesting person.
Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story is at Watershed from 18th April until at least 24th April. You can grab your tickets here, with £5 tickets for anyone 24 and under!
