Song for a Raggy Boy

In 1939 a new teacher arrives at a reformatory school in Ireland. William Franklin fought in the Spanish Civil War, keeps his distance from religion and is the school's only lay teacher. The clergy running it discipline the boys with beatings and humiliation. Franklin tries reaching them through reading and poetry. One of the priests, Brother John, will not allow it. The film is not interested in individual evil. It is interested in the institution: beating is not the exception but the method, and the state knows. It rests on the real history of Ireland's industrial schools and softens nothing. The form is cold and enclosed: stone corridors, dormitories, winter, grey light. The scenes of violence are short and shown in full. Aisling Walsh directed, from Patrick Galvin's memoir of his own childhood. The film appeared in the years when official inquiries into these schools were under way in Ireland and became part of that argument. Aidan Quinn plays Franklin and Iain Glen plays Brother John. Who it is for: viewers who like criticism of institutions and films looking at Irish history. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot take physical and sexual violence against children. The film shows it openly and offers no consolation.