June Butler flocks to the cinema for Cara Holmes’ debut feature Notes From Sheepland – a documentary that’s shear genius.
Notes From Sheepland is a unique and fascinating take on the joys of sheep farming as seen through the eyes of maverick installation artist Orla Barry. On initially becoming aware of its topic, a cinemagoer might be forgiven for thinking this would take a more pedestrian stance – and that same cinemagoer would be wrong. The documentary is one of the most mesmerising pieces of film I have seen in some time. It is beyond that – Barry is a magician. A teller of tales. A weaver of folklore. And in observing her creative genius, Director Cara Holmes has fashioned a completely spellbinding story.
Elements of the film were based on the book Shaved Rapunzel, Scheherazade and the Shearling Ram from Arcady by Orla Barry. Scheherazade, the Persian beauty, who so entranced Sultan Shahryar with her captivating fairytales told over 1,001 nights, that the ruler spared her life, fell in love, and married her, provides a fitting symbol for Barry’s narrative. Barry and Scheherazade both possess the moniker of fabled storyteller because Notes From Sheepland has that quality in spades.
Opening scenes of the art-movie show a nightscape with the eerily luminescent eyes of sheep reflecting light, standing silent in the whispering weaving grass. Music plays and is accompanied by a tumbling rush of words, embodying a sense of hushed reverence. The images give way to an almost paranormal awareness of beast and the very clay it stands on. Mutely statuesque, the sheep stare, idle, curious, chewing methodically. Their gaze is both profound yet lacking in judgement. What they see is what you get.
Orla Barry is an equal hybrid of no-nonsense and perceptive sentience. Strong and independent, she has transcended the skill of nuance and combined it with steely determination. Growing up on a farm, Barry moved to Brussels and stayed there for 16 years. Upon returning to Ireland, she came back to the farming life in Wexford where Barry keeps a flock of pedigree Lleyn sheep alongside her art studio. Throughout the film, there are images that can only be inspired by a true artist – scenes of a male choir in front of a barn which might make the viewer pause and think it is inconsequential when it is anything but. The singers’ voices soar to the heights, controlled, melodious and oh so very beautiful. A pitchfork rests in the crook of an open farmyard gate.
Scenes of casual prettiness are sewn into the story. They appear accidental but they are most definitely not. Barry views her world through sheets of cool, litmus-grey eyes – seeing all with a fiery heart, an intensity of knowing that has not come from learning by rote. Hers is an innate core of wisdom and understanding. A sense of being, still, imperfect, here and now, yet eternal, ancient, bonding in step with our planet and seeing there is no other way to be in this world. Items and aspects are drawn into the tableaux, appearing trivial and hardly worth noticing. This is part of Cara’s exceptional observations of Orla too– we are brought into the light, encouraged to really witness her surroundings but Barry is at peace if we notice nothing at all. Clouds like daisy chains folding slowly across a sky-blue space are juxtaposed with a veterinarian called to the farm, checking to see how many lambs each ewe is carrying. This reflects the implacable, unyielding force of nature itself, giving and taking away in equal measure.
After roughly ten years of giving birth to lambs, the ewes are sent for slaughter. There is no other option. The saddest day commences when these innocent creatures, hopping and trotting unaware of their fate, are led up the ramp of a steel trailer and driven away to their death. Lambs are allowed reach a maximum weight of 22 kilos before being butchered, for the simple reason that cuts of meat from larger or smaller animals will not fit uniformly into a Styrofoam tray. They must all be roughly the same mass and size so that they may be stacked on top of each other evenly. It is gut-wrenchingly painful to think that a simple balancing scale can dictate the length of a life. As the ewes are escorted to meet their maker, Barry stands wistfully at the gate of what was once their field, wiping away the traces of tears trickling down her face. She believes that despite the cyclical necessity of her actions, she has betrayed her closest friends. Barry has stated that even with the quality of wool sheared from her flock of sheep, the fleeces are worth almost nothing. She maintains selling the wool would hardly pay the fees of the shearer.
Worth a very special mention is cinematographer Luca Truffarelli, with intuitive editing by Mick Mahon and Cara along with a thoughtful and immensely moving musical score compiled by Verity Susman and Matthew Simms.
Onyx pools of liquid black. Inky, infinite, a molten abyss that speaks of depthless wisdom. Notes From Sheepland is top to toe, head to cloven foot, steeped in gorgeousness and it proves beyond any argument, that art and creativity, the very essence of existence itself, can and do live as one.
