Tim Kidner Anybody who's travelled through the southern west of Ireland may already feel acquainted with such a quiet, semi-rural service station, how someone would fill up your tank for you - and that person might be someone a little like Josie.Josie, naturally but superbly played by Pat Shortt is a slow and steady sort of bloke, who, one summer gets some help and company at work from a 15 year old work experience youth. Natural conversations develop and flow and soon, the normally insular Josie is, unknowingly bitten by this and is soon drinking cans with him and other local lads.However, it is an object that is given to Josie by a travelling lorry driver that awakens senses in him. Its mechanical portrayal of an normally extreme emotional and intimate nature subjects Josie to an skewed stance of women. The only known cast member (to me, at least) Anne Marie-Duff is the subject of his very moderate but maligned attention. She is friendly but firm on the matter.A further instance of poor judgement - one Josie didn't even think about - turns, quietly, his world upside down.Other reviewers have said how bleak the film is. I disagree. The ending, yes but generally, it has the feeling of a laid-back character-led indie film. Modest in aspiration, budget and final outcome. That same outcome is one the most oft used, from Greek literature, Shakespeare and so on. To my mind, it says a lot more about how outside influences can affect, dramatically, an area and a way of life not used to such. And maybe Ireland itself feeling the pressures of such, with traditional moral values being risked, though the film is certainly not preachy.Take 'Garage' as a quiet character piece that gently makes its point.

Noelia Rodríguez Sotelo Josie's innocence in Garage Garage is an interesting film which is marked by its symbolism and the typical Irish environment. Although Garage is a current film, it has many basic features of this type of melancholic film. Many melancholic elements of the film are personified on the protagonist, Josie. This character, in contrast, develops a different and decadent progression along the film. Josie is a charming and happy man who works in a gas station and he is the typical person who does not aspire to a great life, only a monotonous and superficial life. But when he meets a young boy, Josie experiments other pessimistic part of his life. This progression is a mixture between Josie's optimistic and superficial life and the pessimistic and, also, natural events of the life in which Josie is involved.On the one hand, Josie's progression as an adult is clarified along the film but, from my point of view, the lack of music in the film marks calm and monotony.On the other hand, in the middle of the film the music appears and this is the clue for the audience that the story, in this point of the film, is going to change. This change is the difficult progression in Josie's life, when the events are developing in a fluent way. In this sense, Josie begins to discover many unusual things in his life. For this reason, the actual Josie's personality is discovered and his innocence is clear in this point of the film. In my opinion, the innocence of this character is the essence of the film but, the point in which the pure Josie's innocence begins to harm the society, Josie is condemned.Apart from this, when the spectators watch this film, they are assimilating a terrible feeling of sadness and melancholy in relation to Josie's story, and especially, because of his pure innocence condemned by a corrupted society of this Irish village. The great turning of the story when the music appears in the film shows the second and decadent part of Josie's life and, from my point of view, many symbols appear along the film but actually, the audience realize of the symbols of the film, almost at the end of it, which are being used as a leitmotiv in the film and this is the most important clue of the film in order to understand the real and innocent Josie's life like the animals in the film. Animals, in this case, are a great symbol of basic instincts, innocence, isolation… and in my opinion, Josie and the animals suffer a parallel life.

Darío Metola Rodríguez Melancholy.In the film Garage, directed by Leonard Abrahamson, we see a good example of the melancholy of a man who is alone, appreciated by many people, but this people do not go a step further in their relationship with him.We can see in Josie's life (Pat Shortt) the happiness of the person that is not literate and does not know anything about real life, and thinks that everything is OK and that everybody takes care of him, as a childish thought about the society, but some events are going to change his mind.This sense of melancholy is given also, apart from the performance of Shortt, by the type of shots appearing in the film, mainly by extremely long shots, covering as much images as possible, even if there are people inside the frame. This type of shots give us the feeling of loneliness that Josie feels, although he does not realize of it, and transfer us the loneliness of the Irish countryside, sad, rainy and plain. We can see that the camera is just a witness of what is happening, it is not a watcher of the action, as an example there are not counter shots or over-the-shoulder shots, everything is just like a photography, where the director wants to have as much visual information as possible. The lack of conversation is solved by this use of the camera, and the absence of a real action is not the important characteristic of this film, but something that aims us to think about the film, not just to see it.Darío Metola Rodríguez.

davoshannon Neil Garvey, elsewhere on these comments, summarises all the cinematic points perfectly.But if anyone thought Pat Shortt was limited to Killinascully style comedy (which is excellent), think again. Playing the part, slightly better than marginally functional, he displays all the characteristics which evoke sympathy in some people and disdain in others. Strangely none of the negative traits which really ostracise. So we can all, for the most part, be on his side. It's powerful acting, though; I never saw anything to lift me back from the film itself.Somebody mentioned lighting as a problem. Well, the inside of garages can be dark so no problem there, and some of the riverside scenes were magical. Water skimmers with full reflection of their undersides - well done or what?.Others mentioned blow-ins and non-villagers are altering the outcomes. Couldn't see it.But it's bleak, and the reason for his unravelment is the one young person who seemed to appreciate or understand his (necessarily) simplistic view of life, which is particularly cruel.Elsewhere on the message boards I see someone wondering was there a metaphor in the conclusion.I can only think that he wondered what the other side could be like.See, I told you it didn't cheer me up!