Critics reviews

Pat Collins blends a documentarian’s attachment to authenticity with a poet’s flair for innovation and unconventional storytelling. [Song of Granite is] a biopic not quite like any other, [a] measured, oblique but luminous film.

Song of Granite is a lyrical paean to Gaelic culture and the ability of music to colour the distance between the past and present... [The film] is more than just an impressionistic portrait of a folk singer, with Heaney merely a talisman of what happens when one’s native customs are threatened by the colonising imposition of a foreign culture.

This film is full of marvels that are a million miles from John Ford... A work of genius.

[Song of Granite] is an immersion in gorgeous gloom... eschewing connect-the-dots biography in favor of an impressionistic mosaic — one that refuses to sentimentalize its subject.

[Song of Granite] succeeds in selling us its subject and eulogising his surroundings... Some viewers may yearn for a touch more narrative drive. Many not familiar with the Irish language may wonder why the songs in that language are not subtitled... But nobody will emerge unmoved.

If Andrei Tarkovsky had grown up in rural Ireland, he might have made a biographical cine-memoir as luminously beautiful as Song of Granite... Lyrical, elliptical, lightly experimental... this uncompromisingly arty biopic has obvious appeal to the globally scattered Irish Diaspora and folk music connoisseurs, though fans of vintage Tarkovsky and early Terence Davies movies will also find immersive sensory pleasures here, too.

Rare is the musical biopic that serves its subject quite so generously... “Song of Granite,” on the other hand, leads with the fiddles in all senses: Pat Collins’ echoing, elegiac evocation of the spirit of Irish sean nós singer Joe Heaney is most interested in his haunted vocal gift, letting the troubled life that weathered it show through only in glimmers between the gorgeous songs.

[Song of Granite] tries to shake off the biopic doldrums, employing a fragmented structure that emphasizes isolated moments instead of a narrative arc... But Mr. Collins doesn’t shed light on what makes his subject tick, and the arty shards never cohere.

Rather than placing its bets on its subject, [Song of Granite] gambles on the sounds and images offered by Collins... [The film] ends up feeling more like a collection of ideas about how to make an art film than a story that’s essential for the way it’s told. The sensations it leaves are hollow, and like Heaney, it’s easy to feel displaced, longing for connection but unsure of where to find it.

Song of Granite illuminates the life and music of Joe Heaney through an unclassifiable film that blends verité, neo-realism, archival footage, mockumentary, and good old-fashioned musical performances to create a timeless ode to a significant voice in traditional Irish song. It’s a breathtaking elegy to a man, his music, and the land that created them.

Song of Granite is a transcendent portrait of Heaney’s life. If one thing is for certain, Collins magnificently captures the environment that spawned Heaney... What is most remarkable about Song of Granite is Collins’ refusal to abide by cinematic conventions.

It’s rare to view a title as formally audacious as Song of Granite... This is a soulful, austere piece of auteur film-making which shirks narrative convention for a story told through haunting sound and fleeting impressions... This doc/feature hybrid film isn’t perfect, but it is quite perfectly-made.