From Omeleto.
A woman is trapped in an asylum.
UROBOROS is used with permission from Constant Motion Pictures. Learn more at https://constantmotion.ie.
Moira is a free-spirited young woman living in Ireland. Having fallen in love with Eamonn, the pair share an idyllic interlude by the water, planning their life together, before Moira rushes to church. But when she arrives, bedraggled and windblown, she embarrasses her mother and enrages her authoritarian father.
Her father labels her “mad” and commits her to an asylum. Inside the institution, Moira drifts through nightmarish, overpopulated halls, trying desperately to escape and haunted by the traumas she witnesses and experiences within. In a desperate bid, Moira finally breaks free, only to discover a darker fate awaiting her.
Directed and written by Diarmuid Donohoe, this darkly compelling short historical drama explores the cycles of trauma and institutional cruelty as they intertwine with intergenerational abuse. Portraying historical injustices in 1950s Ireland, the narrative examines how “independent” women and other social nonconformists were often labeled insane and locked away. Through Moira’s story — brought to life with stately yet dynamic craft and an ingenious puzzle box of a narrative structure — we’re brought intimately into the dilemma of being imprisoned against one’s will, in a place that inflicts harm as much as it purports to keep its patients from it.
The film has an elegant eye, capturing 1950s rural Ireland with an immersive sense of time and place, from the idyllic natural beauty to the muted, even drab buildings and rooms. Within this restrained milieu, Moira’s joie de vivre and passion stand out, especially when we meet her with her lover, sequestered away in the countryside by a cliff overlooking the water. She courts disapproval, particularly from her cold, controlling father, who labels Moira as crazy and then commits her to an asylum.
The storytelling’s contours shift from an elegant historical register to one reflecting the psychological horror that Moira experiences. Time periods become fragmented, sensations and images distort, and music and sounds add a chilling dissonance, taking church-like and nature sounds and turning them icy and frightening. This dream-like narrative logic reflects the physical and psychic space of the asylum, transforming and warping Moira’s sense of self. Moira is tortured and treated abominably, which draws her into a desperation and even madness that she never had before she entered the institution’s clammy, dirty walls.
Actor Emma Dargan‑Reid’s multi-faceted performance captures Moira’s vitality and spark, filled with an innate strength. Yet even this sturdiness disintegrates as she finds herself unable to escape the asylum. But finally, she finds a way to escape the awful reality, her flight to liberation as propulsive, daring and vital as she is — until she confronts just how deeply she is entrenched in an unjust system.
Powerful, riveting and richly crafted, UROBOROS is based in part upon the true experiences of the director’s grandmother, who was also institutionalized in 1950s Ireland. At that time, Ireland had more people in institutions than even the Soviet Union, making it a common tactic to deal with the rebellious, difficult and socially outcast. It is a dark chapter of history, brought to life today with vivid storytelling and visceral empathy. It asks questions of how people and forces in society collude to create such horror, and what is owed to those who are victims of it.
