Films have gotten leaner and leaner, cutting out all variations from the story line.

I mean I grew up in Ireland, so one would have to be consciously blinkered not to have reflected on the issue of political violence because that was the story since I was 19 years old or 20.

When you've written a movie, you then get together with a whole lot of people and make it. In many ways, I think it is far nicer to be with people rather than being completely solitary.

For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy.

It's the opposite journey from what I've usually done with films. I find it very easy to go from, say, a lit, pleasurable environment, like what you see outside there, to a very dark place. But the opposite journey, which is what this movie takes, is much more complicated.

And I think I often choose to do something because it's quite different from what I've done before.

Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?