Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

GiselleCorrelli I love this film, because its so different. Why are people afraid of that? Its a fly on the wall snippet of a family's life. It never claimed to be anything else. I do wonder what the kids are doing now, are they married? Still in Ringsend? Put most other kids in front of a camera and they wont be like Winnie, realise it or not she would make a good actress. I didn't know how much was scripted/acted and what was genuine, but it doesn't matter. I heard this film won an award and the family were taken to view it in Italy, I imagine they were pretty much abandoned after that. Well I could watch it over and over again, we don't have to agree with their life/choices but its good to see how other people live!

johnnyboyz Pavee Lackeen: The Traveller Girl revolves around a young, pre-teen girl from Ireland named Winnie who lives in a rather small stationary mobile home with her mother and family beside a large port. Huge lorries carrying large containers and the noise they make are the dominant sound effects to their lives; the areas Winnie journeys to are limited to in and around the general area of a town centre complete with small shops and tacky arcades; the fights she gets into at school and the trips to the head teacher's office afterwards offer brief moments of incident in her life whilst uninspiring conversations over fish and chip dinners in the middle of nowhere about barely anything at all are the highlights of communication with people of her own age group. This is the life of Winnie, this is the life of the lead in Pavee Lackeen: The Traveller Girl; a 2006 Irish film-come-documentary from Perry Ogden about mobile home dwellers with barely anywhere to go and barely anything to look forward to.The film is an exciting, contemporary neo-realist piece, with apparently real people instead of actors, outlining the damaging effect that this sort of situation might have on the youth. It additionally raises awareness of the supposed state of the people focused on within, highlighting the state's ignoring in providing housing for those that need it. As more and more containers on the backs of lorries roll by, and the emphasis on the bustling import/export links with the wider extent of the world the state have going on becomes more obvious, the more we feel for those domestically that are being ignored of whom really do need the nation's attention. The world in which the film unfolds is low level and dank, one would exclaim it were dangerous but the area in which those that we follow are based is so devoid of action that you'd be hard pressed to even find someone or something that might be a threat.Despite revolving around young girl Winnie, no specific gaze is established on her behalf thus rendering the film less of how a child might purvey these surroundings and more of a broader; more collective tale of people in this situation. Their existence is placed in stark contrast with a character known as Marie, an estate agent who mingles with Winnie and her family and who it's crucially established: "doesn't live in a trailer anymore". Marie pops up on occasion with some advice on a notice of eviction, but she also maintains in comparison to Winnie's family, a physically superior presence through her clothing; is quite clearly more informed and certainly speaks more affluently, thus representing a physical manifestation of success born out of this existence and sorts of people we're dealing with. There's a slight sense of Winnie able to follow suit being the young, adventurous and seemingly carefree person that she is; something put in stark contrast to her mother.Winnie's sense of adventure in exploring and getting out and about on a consistent basis is a ray of light compared to her mother, whom she outranks in this department and ability to come across as comprehensible. Slowly but surely, we see a harmless and rather bubbly young girl sink lower and lower when fights at school spill out into the rest of the world in attempts at shoplifting; clear-cut stealing in the taking of coins form a fountain to quench afternoon boredom and the ill-advised wearing of relatively loose clothing as this young tearaway ventures out with a female companion into the darkness of night amidst an admittedly poor area of docklands surroundings and general lower-lever urbanisation. The risks and results are seemingly oblivious to Winnie, whom even when she wishes to listen to music and dance to it, must realise there is no bedroom nor stereo of her own to hideaway in amongst a plateau of privacy.The film is a series of incidences and scenes in which it appears Winnie is attempting to find herself; to find some kind of identity running parallel to a strand more dedicated to plot, scenario and apparent cause and effect in that the local council enforcers whom have the power to do so wish to move Winnie and the family's mobile home out of the docklands zone. The question as to whether this is good or not for the family hinges on whether they're eligible for council housing. I preferred Winnie's scenes and general segment more, in that her attempting to find her own 'self' sees her hold dresses that she swipes out of large skips housing clothes people have decided to give up for charity up to her body so as to test a friend's opinion on how it looks. On other occasions, she ventures into immigrant owned video stores to quandary about items such as the videos and films as well as a separate hair salon to ask of the hair extensions. This might be seen as a furthering of one's attempt at identity, this time through a physical extension of the body in the manipulation of one's hair decorations to form a personification of some kind.Perry Ogden has achieved something rather extraordinary, taking a camera and venturing out into the Irish docklands and surrounding area, in the process finding a family; shooting them for what they are; capturing their predicament plus whatever general strife comes their way and managing to inject some sort of brooding sense of tragedy into the proceedings of a young girl's decline in well-being. At one point, a number of Winnie's siblings attempt to sing together within the confines of the mobile home each of them share whilst in-front of Marie the estate agent. They sing badly, that is until a chorus of singing in unison brings them all together: the tune is an old favourite of most in "I Will Survive", something that stands eerily and somewhat falsely in contrast to just about everything else.

Martin Bradley Perry Ogden's superb "Pavee Lackeen" looks and feels like a film from Eastern Europe but it is, in fact, Irish although set in an Ireland few of us who live here would recognize. The title means 'the traveller girl' and the film, which is virtually plot less, is set amongst the travelling community, those people who were once simply called gypsies. The cast are non-professionals and, for the most part, they are playing themselves. Indeed the film is much closer to a documentary, albeit a staged one, than it is to fiction.The central character is Winnie and she is 'played' by Winnie Maughan. Of course, she isn't acting any more than anyone else is acting or you might say other members of the cast are acting out their parts and acting them very badly. Winnie, however, is different in that she has a 'real' personality that has nothing to do with her being an actress; (let's just hope she has a life and let's hope no-one ever tries to talk her into any kind of 'acting' career).What plot there is concerns the eviction of Winnie's mother Rose from her caravan - and that's it. There are no big dramatic moments or revelations. Ogden's camera simply observes these people as they live through the drudgery of their daily lives, lives lived very much on the margins of society. Apart from the travellers themselves we see very few native Irish people. Ogden emphasizes that Ireland is now a multi-cultural society populated by people from around the globe. Winnie finds affinity with these people in that she, too, is an outsider, a stranger in her own land. Obviously very intelligent, her future will depend on her breaking away from her family. (She has a brother in gaol but he talks to her of going 'straight' when he gets out and getting his own flat). Whether she does or not is a different matter. The last shot in the film is of Winnie fetching water from a tap some distance from the caravan she calls home so that she can make her mother a cup of tea. It is an image both bleak and haunting and is perfectly in keeping with Ogden's vision of an Ireland far removed from the Celtic tiger.

joegreene32 Having read some rave reviews and comments on this film, I actually bought the DVD. What a disappointment. Has everyone been watching the same film. Nothing happens. A young traveler girl wanders from scene to scene, the non-narrative stretched to near breaking point. If anything, the style and technique are lifted straight from the Dardenne brothers film Rosetta, albeit without the gripping story and plot. What we have here is a con job, mutton dressed as lamb. This slight drama masquerades as social comment, but there is an uneasy feeling as you watch it that a middle-class professional fashion photographer could be accused of exploiting the travelers. I can only deduce that it appeals to other middle class liberals who want to get down with the tinkers, but who wouldn't lift a finger or inquire further on their behalf. Above all, it's boring. High point the mother's performance, low point the long shots where nothing happens. The piano music at the end says it all. Warning: Brendan Gleeson is not in this film.