The Liberties – RTE1

@alonso wrote:

Just for Gunter…. 10:15-11:15 – in other words now.

May be on RTE Player tomorrow

Film had a bit of everything presented in an extremely cliched manner, dat ownly de ‘aul liberties me segoshah can throw up; from the shiftless, bitter and decidely old school racist flower sellers to the charming fruit and veg man.

You would swear you’d be eaten alive by the inhabitants of any other inner city neighbourhood in Dublin if you believed half the guff perpetuated about Thomas/Meath st by this hoary old topic:rolleyes:

Yeh I really wanted it to be good but couldn’t sit through it all. There was at least an acknowledgement of the number of junkies in the area but it was way too rose tinted – even the bit about the kid dying from heroin use, the last of her friends to die, seemed to be nostalgic rather than the utter tragedy it must have been. Dunno what the horse owner at the end was all about – not exactly a critical analysis of an area that definitely merits it – “too many foreigners, too many buildins, too many cars” – hardly groundbreaking

Yea, it was interesting, but a bit slow and predictable. Brenda polishing her Oscar was a bit corny.

I missed some of it and I don’t this is the bit alonso is talking about but the interview with the resident of School St. flats was the most powerful piece for me. I found the way they told the story of the daughter (one out of seven) that was taken by drugs genuinely moving. In five or six sentences and a handful of images they told the whole tragic story, and the decency of the people that were hit by this casual tragedy shone through. I thought that was superb story telling.

Well done to all concerned on that.

I saw yesterday that Crowe, the stone man, is moving out from the yard beside 7 & 8 Thomas St., leasehold for sale, I suppose we can expect some outsized glass in-fill in due course.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It was beautifully clichéd, reassuringly predictable and effortlessly nostalgic and funny.
I would have found it deeply unsettling if a documentary about one of Dublin’s oldest and most integral communities had been self-conciously ground-breaking.

Bravo RTÉ and the relevant production companies for some of the recent great programming.
It just about makes up for the broadcasting of Fair City and Eastenders.