It's Now or Never

It's Now or Never

Documentary Film
Denmark
1996
50 minutes
Subtitles: 
No

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Jon Bang Carlsen
Director
Jon Bang Carlsen
Music
Dolores Keane, Tommy & Siobhán Peoples, Garry O'Briain
Cinematographer
Donal Gilligan
Editor
Molly Malene Stensgaard
Script
Jon Bang Carlsen
Sound
Darby Carroll
Photographer
Jon Bang Carlsen
In his films, Jon Bang Carlsen is consistently drawn to people in remote places. In “It’s Now or Never”, the rough west coast of Ireland forms the backdrop of a documentary comedy about love, or rather about the search for a woman in a fairly depopulated area. Jimmy, in his mid-50s and a bachelor for want of opportunity, turns to a local matchmaker who runs his business from a café. So much for the framework of the narrative in which Bang Carlsen transports us to a reality filled with the bachelors’ wishes and doubts, utterly improbably encounters, and innumerable playful moments. It’s soon clear that the reality that unfolds so seductively on the screen is constructed, organised to meet the demands of film: beautifully photographed faces, stone walls placed in the lush green hills like sculptures, changing camera positions, dispersed dialogue, the magic of Irish rain … and Jimmy, always Jimmy, who only wants a woman who’s a good milker.
Matthias Heeder