Some mothers sound off

AT TIMES it began to seem more like an episode from Some Mother's Do Have Em than a press conference launch Some Mother's Son, the controversial film about the Northern hunger strikes which had its premiere in Dublin last night.

At the press conference there was the same air of almost bland routine suddenly provoked into farce by mere anarchy, loosed. Recrimination reigned, about journalists with agendas, film makers with intent and dark sympathies hinted at.

Then a voice like thunder spoke, "what about the mothers? What is a mother? This film is about the struggle to be free of a mother." So said Fionnula Flanagan, a mother in the film, trying desperately to restore sanity to the scene.

"Cowards," observed Helen Mirren, another mother in the film. She was speaking of people who plant bombs. Her remark followed extreme provocation from a questioner who persisted in a "repent, repent, ye evilders" mode. Treating her, too, as yet another prime suspect.

"There now, you have your, headline," spat the film's director Terry George to the questioner. He is heartily sick of journalists with agendas who come to press conferences just seeking "quotes they can massage to fit" into pieces already written. Fie on it as Shakespeare might have said.

"Shakespeare didn't tie things up neatly," Ms Mirren pointed out implying that in the film as in life, not everything makes sense. "You are looking at the frame, not the picture," she advised.

"This is a partisan film," Mr George said, "there is no film without bias." But doing it had forced him to question things. He liked that.

Jim Sheridan, who co produced and assisted with writing the film, was having none of this "inflaming passions" bit about it. Television coverage of the Garvaghy Road was far more likely to inflame people, he felt.

So too does staging press conferences which offer a vocal opportunity to the usual suspects.