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Ireland, United Kingdom, France · 2018
1h 13m
Director Dónal Foreman
Starring Arthur MacCaig
Genre Documentary, History
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This documentary essay film draws on over 30 years of unique and never-before-seen imagery to weave together a history of the Northern Irish Troubles with the story of a son's search for his father. In the process, the film creates a candid encounter between the two, both filmmakers but born into different political moments, revealing their contrasting experiences of Irish nationalism.
The Image You Missed exists at multiple levels. It is an archival quest to bring back to life a man’s oeuvre, an attempt to reckon with one’s national identity, and a struggle to make sense of the legacy a father left behind. Each film is a mission impossible, but Foreman’s plays out at depths few others normally venture in.
The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg
The Image You Missed is less compelling as an act of personal therapy than it is as filmed film criticism, but even if it doesn’t fully cohere, Foreman’s family stake helps keep it original.
The Hollywood Reporter by Neil Young
The Image You Missed arguably functions most effectively as an impressionistic primer on tumultuous Ulster affairs during and after the Troubles, providing vivid glimpses of a violent epoch whose controversial repercussions continue to periodically reverberate across the British Isles and beyond.
Slant Magazine by Peter Goldberg
The film finds Dónal Foreman exploring the suggestive gaps that exist between his own biography and that of his father.