Depicting and evoking vulnerability in Irish-language cinema: An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl) (2022).

We are currently living through an extraordinary period of productivity and success for Irish-language cinema, evident in the critical and commercial success of An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl), the first Irish-language feature to be nominated for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award. Understanding the reasons for the success of An Cailín Ciúin is a complex undertaking that involves considerations at a number of levels including the particularities of its linguistic and aesthetic realisation that contributed to its impact on audiences. This article draws on Laura U. Marks concept of “haptic visuality” to examine how the film realises and communicates evocatively to the viewer the theme of vulnerability. This functions on a range of levels but there are three principle layers to this that this article will examine – one is language and the choice to translate the source text into Irish (and the implications of this); second, the nature and historical context of the Irish language film production; and third and perhaps most importantly, the sophisticated realisation of vulnerability (and its significance) within the film’s narrative and aesthetic approach, including through Kate McCullough’s superb cinematography.