A young impoverished boy wins the opportunity to spend a pleasant day out in the countryside. The under privileged children are told a fairy tale and this transforms the young lad. He imagines a land beyond the sunset. The film ends on a poetic enigmatic note.
The film is an unusual combination of social drama and otherworldly fantasy. It has to be said that these two seemingly opposing genres are combined here quite beautifully. There is definitely a social conscience here. The squalor of the city slums is compared to the country and it's clear that the film implies the latter is much better and purer. The fairy tale sequence itself is very nice, helped a great deal by the lilting Irish music accompanied by it in the version I saw and fitted with the images perfectly. The ending itself is somewhat ambiguous and open to different interpretations but this is one of the very reasons it is so effective and why this old film still feels so fresh.
The film is an unusual combination of social drama and otherworldly fantasy. It has to be said that these two seemingly opposing genres are combined here quite beautifully. There is definitely a social conscience here. The squalor of the city slums is compared to the country and it's clear that the film implies the latter is much better and purer. The fairy tale sequence itself is very nice, helped a great deal by the lilting Irish music accompanied by it in the version I saw and fitted with the images perfectly. The ending itself is somewhat ambiguous and open to different interpretations but this is one of the very reasons it is so effective and why this old film still feels so fresh.