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A documentary on the influential musician Scott Walker.
In 1980, two Cork outsiders, Cathal Coughlan and Sean O’Hagan, met at a New Year's Eve party. Bonding over music, a friendship and songwriting partnership was ignited; the band they formed, Microdisney, was one of the best bands of the 1980s that you’ve probably never heard. Mixing Sean’s stunning melodic arrangements with Cathal’s poetic, angry lyrics, they recorded three brilliant LPs, gained critical adulation and an obsessive cult following. But a hit single eluded them, as did radio play and LP sales. By 1988, frustrated by their lack of progress, the band crashed and burned, leaving a trail of acrimony and broken friendships.
The film explores the dual inspirations for his musical theatre piece Flannery's Mounted Head, first staged in 2005: Cork's Victorian 'madhouse' and the equally sprawling 'Arcades' project of the German critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin. Cathal Coughlan's song-cycle narrative centres on Flannery, a marginal character who starts out as the night manager in a call-centre. Director Johnny Gogan, who has worked with Coughlan on various projects over the years, finds Flannery's story remarkably akin to that of his creator and uses Flannery to explore his creator's own biography. The film features the live imaging work of Rob Flint, 3D animation of Jordi Perez Artigues, and actor Donal O'Kelly appears as Walter Benjamin/Mister Bungle.
Hired to draw a map of tourist sites in a small Northern Ireland town, cartographer Richie Markey (Brian F. O'Byrne) uncovers a dark secret and realizes that his map may hold the key to the mysterious disappearance of another surveyor. The missing man had been accused of informing on two IRA soldiers, and when Markey discovers his body, it doesn't take long for him to draw the conclusion that he may be next on the group's list.
