I Could Read the Sky

An old man is sitting alone in his room in a scruffy apartment in London. He thinks back on his life, his youth in Ireland, his journey to England. The film unravels his working- class existence and moves between the declining primitive life in the countryside and modern London. The film digs deep into the melancholy Irish soul, with an inescapable notion of detachment and loss. The old man does not have a name, he represents the fate of many Irish workers who migrated to England in the fifties and sixties to look for work. He remembers saying goodbye to his family and the colours of his youth. He remembers the things that were new to him, things he found difficult: a meal without potatoes, wearing a wristwatch, inviting a woman for a stroll, remembering bus routes, recognising the queen, understanding cricket, putting up with loud voices. I Could Read the Sky is not a drama in the conventional sense of the word. In an almost avant-garde style the memories and (lost) dreams of a man at the end of his life are visualised. In the memories that float to the surface, moments of unexpected clarity are juxtaposed with misty squalls from the subconscious. The remembering process shapes the intangible, fragmentary structure of the film: Nichola Bruce is more interested in reflecting a frame of mind than in reconstructing the past.