HELEN

Ireland, 2008, 79 minutes, Colour.
Annie Townsend.
Directed by Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy.

Words that come to mind in association with watching Helen are 'contemplative', 'evocative', 'reflective' – and anomalous. It is anomalous because the initial subject is the abduction of a young woman, her disappearance, the police search and investigation and the preparation for a reconstruction of the disappearance for the media. But, really, the film is not about that at all. The abduction is the occasion for a portrait of Helen.

Helen is the fellow student who is picked for the re-enactment. She is just 18, an orphan who knows nothing about her parents, seems more passive than active, a very emotionally needy girl. The prospect of the end of school, exams, the re-enactment have an influence on how she acts – she also works as a maid in a hotel – but it is the attention, the empathy she tries to feel for the missing girl, meeting her parents, wanting the girl's boyfriend to love her that stir some emotions in her. She says that she has never heard anyone say that they love her. There is also the process of looking at the documents about her past and her parents.

But, this kind of noting the themes and action do not help to describe the effect of Helen. It is the visual style and cinematic art that make it different. The film opens with slow, long, tracking shots of a group in the woods and continues with this style throughout. While there are a number of medium shots and some rare close-ups, so much of the film is in this slow distant camera mode. So often, the frame of the screen acts like a proscenium and the action takes place at some distance as if the audience were in a live theatre. This is why the film is evocative and calls for reflection on what is going on as much as an emotional response.

1.The acclaim for the film? Critical praise? Audience response? A difficult film?

2.The Irish setting? Not explicitly Irish? Universal?

3.The importance of the visual style? The use of the wide screen? The use of slow tracking shots? Lengthy shots? The few close-ups? The use of the screen as a proscenium – and performance in many of the scenes and sequences like theatre? The cumulative effect? Slow, contemplative, evocative? The musical score?

4.The opening, the slow-motion people walking in the woods? The girl going by herself? Filmed from the back? The implications that she had been abducted? The later explanations, the police search of the woods, the tableau of the police in-line searching? The officer and his taking the call on the mobile phone – in close-up? The clothes and other material scattered throughout the woods? The crime site? The parents and the police discussion, offering them all the clothes and the diary and what was found? Their response?

5.The transition to the young people in the school, the music, the rehearsals for Brigadoon? The later use of Brigadoon and its theme for the theme of this film? Coming alive for a day, going to sleep for a hundred years? Trying to find out identity during the waking hours – otherwise one would be lost?

6.The policewoman and her discussion with the students? The close-ups of each of them? The line-up? The choice of the two for the re-enactment for television? The discussions with Helen, her response, willingness to do the re-enactment? Going to the park, following the signs – and the camera following the twelve-plus markers?

7.The film focusing on Helen? Her lack of identity? In the school, in the institution? Orphaned? Her work in the hotel, the discussion with Maria, the refugee from eastern Europe? Her change of name, language, a new beginning? Helen’s response – and the challenge for her own new beginning?

8.Helen in herself, her age? Her need to be loved, to hear somebody express this love? Her meeting with Joy’s boyfriend, their discussions, her wanting him to kiss her, to go to the hotel? Their sitting in the hotel and talking? Her never having been kissed, the kiss itself? Her neediness?

9.Helen with Sheila, her supervisor, the discussions about the documents, her being able to look at them because of her age? Her seeming unwillingness? Lack of interest? Fear? Sheila persuading her that she needed to confront her past? Her decision to do this? Going to the woman with the documents, the explanation about her parents, the separation, the disappearance of her father, the mental decline of her mother, her death? Her birth certificate? Her trying to deal with this – that being sufficient information for the time being?

10.Her visit with Joy’s parents, the meal, their discussions about school, the father breaking down and weeping? The mother’s support? Her later talking in her imagination to Joy, taking the photo from the family room?

11.The Brigadoon sequence, the children, their rehearsal? The teacher and the meaning of Brigadoon? Its relevance to Helen’s life?

12.Helen, the film ending with her being on the verge of finding out more? What might happen to her?