Martyn Bennett: Hallaig and Neil Kempsell's Video

THE GEOGRAPHY OF HALLAIG

Hallaig, on the south-east corner of Raasay and looking across the inner Sound to the Scottish mainland, is perhaps the most famous individual clearance site anywhere in the Highlands. The township is an easy walk of about half an hour from the road at North Fearns, and the remaining houses lie near the top of a grassy glen above a vast stone-built sheep-pen and a shepherd's cottage-constucted from the stones of many of the original houses, after the township was cleared. As with so many other clearance sites, the situation is beautiful, sheltered, fertile; It is obvious why the people formed such strong attachments to their homes, their families and surrounding land.

 

HALLAIG

"The film is an exploration and visual interpretation of the poem "Hallaig" by Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean. The poem originally written in Gaelic and translated describes the tragic loss and memories of a highland community on the Island of Raasay.

The film depicts symbols of life and time. That in Hallaig, there is something to protect. The woods become alive as women, love is presented as a hunter, and time an apparitional deer. The land of the living and the land of the dead become pervious to each other.

The aim of the film is to enlighten and enrich the words of the poem. The aim of creating this film is to educate, inform and raise awareness of the social problems people endured during the period of the Highland Clearances. To research these events of social history in Scotland, in greater depth through the exploration, interpretation and investigation of the poem's use of symbolism and meaning to depict tragedy and loss.

The clearances were virtually ignored for many years this century by writers, historians and academics, partly out of a new struggle towards statehood in Scotland. Devolution and The new Parliament being a new centre of focus and attention.

However in recent years there has been a great revival in Gaelic culture and a renewed interest in Highland History. I believe that The poet Sorley MacLean, when writing "Hallaig" saw the poem as representing and exploring what could be seen as a microcosm for other problems and injustices in the world. For example: Ireland, Africa [Zimbabwe], Bosnia, and also the homeless of Edinburgh"

Neil Kempsell

 

NEIL KEMPSELL

Neil K Kempsell was born in the west coast town of Helensburgh, Scotland on 26th August 1959. He followed his father's Naval career about the country, spending time in Edinburgh, and Dartmouth. Due to his father serving overseas in Australia, he boarded at Queen Victoria School, Dunblane for 8 years and apart from casual work on a farm, ran away to sea in 1976 at the tender age of 17, to see the world.

After serving as a Navigating Officer for 7 years, he decide to change tack, and went to Art College in Edinburgh. Four years of creative endeavour resulted in a BA[hons] in Design, specialising in Illustration and Animation.
During this time 1984 -1989, he also did a Post Graduate in Animation, as well nurturing a fruitful and prolific freelance career, drawing cartoons, illustrations and caricatures for The Scotsman, The Sunday Times, Standard Life, Scottish Widows, Scottish Life, Kwik Fit, to name but a few. He has also created two animated commercials for TV.

Further freelance commision work blossomed into 'much in demand' live caricature performances at corporate and private functions, many held at top Scottish hotels. Neil is now one of the leading 'live' Caricaturists working in Scotland, and is invited to prestigious events throughout the Country.

In 1992 he completed two short animated films in collaboration with the Royal Botanical Gardens, on the subject of Herbal Medicines. In 2005 he produced and directed an animated film in collaboration with the musician Martyn Bennett, exploring the Highland Clearance village of Hallaig on Raasay. Neil is at present in pre production for another experimental animation based on another Martyn Bennett music track entitled 'Mackay’s Memoirs'.

FILMOGRAPHY

1987
Bristol Animation Festival
Screening of animated film 'Mercator's Projection'.

Edinburgh International Film Festival
Screening of animated film 'Mercator's Projection'.

1989
Edinburgh Fringe Film Festival
Screening of two animated films 'John Menzies' and 'The inventions of Heath Robinson'.

1995
Animation artwork and film shown in 'Animation Plus' exhibition touring Nationaly.
  
Shortlisted for MTV 'Free your mind' international competition.

2000
Produced two short experimental animations in collaboration with the Royal Botanical Gardens, and Redkite Productions. Animations based on history and use of Herbal Medicines, as part of national tour entitled 'Flora Celtica'.  
Short film included in DVD 'Millenium Minutes' along with work by other international filmmakers and writers.

2001
Animated film 'Meadowsweet' shown at Filmhouse as part of  Redkite Productions showreel screening.

2003-2004
Commence ECA funded animated film in collaboration with musician Martyn Bennett entitled 'Hallaig'.
Creating sequences inspired by the words of Sorley MacLean, using traditional and digital techniques.

2006-2007
Pre-production of experimental animated film in collaboration with Edinburgh Music School School based on Martyn Bennett 'Mackay’s Memoirs', researching links between the structures and form of The Ceol Mor (Pibroch) 'Lament to Mary MacLeod' and The associated shapes, and movements of the landscape and people of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

NEIL KEMPSELL'S 'HALLAIG' SCREENINGS

THE GEOGRAPHY OF HALLAIG

Hallaig, on the south-east corner of Raasay and looking across the inner Sound to the Scottish mainland, is perhaps the most famous individual clearance site anywhere in the Highlands. The township is an easy walk of about half an hour from the road at North Fearns, and the remaining houses lie near the top of a grassy glen above a vast stone-built sheep-pen and a shepherd’s cottage-constucted from the stones of many of the original houses, after the township was cleared. As with so many other clearance sites, the situation is beautiful, sheltered, fertile; It is obvious why the people formed such strong attachments to their homes, their families and surrounding land.

COMMENTS

What Martyn said about the poem Hallaig:

"I was absolutely overwhelmed when I first read this poem by the great Gaelic bard Sorley MacLean. His analogy of 'time' being the deer is a poignant one. Here the poet stands looking at the ruins of Hallaig on the Isle of Raasay, reflecting upon his people who, like the deer, were not aware of their passing. He refers to them as trees, 'their laughter a mist in my tears'. I feel that this poem expresses, more than any other, the sadness and wonder that I feel when I look upon abandoned communities in Scotland, cleared for nothing more than sheep and cheap English profit." Communications between Neil Kempsell and Martyn regarding the film: "I have always thought that Hallaig as a piece of music would certainly be lifted by some sort of film/animation. I am delighted that you would like to use it in your work." "I have seen your work and I think it's really bonny. It must take such a lot of work!." "Perhaps in the future I may also get some funding to commision more of your work to go with a couple of tracks for my new album Grit. Maybe you would be interested?." What Seamus Heaney said about the poem Hallaig: "In Sorley MacLean's poem 'Hallaig' the personal and social tragedy of irreparable loss come together, but something else begins to happen which chimes with that quality I mentioned possessed by the great tragedies: a remembering that accompanies the disintegration, a kind of re-imagining, a strange joy. In 'Hallaig', MacLean evokes the memories of a cleared township on his native Island of Raasay, in the Hebrides. Here is how Seamus Heaney introduces it: 'Hallaig' is a key poem, insofar as it's about haunting and loss and this theme is a constant one all through MacLean's work, as indeed is the theme of love and wounding. It's a magnificent epiphany, time, memory made palpable in these lucid, paradisal, melancholy, arbitrary images." "The poem has a shimmer of the symbolist imagination about it. It's the same kind of poem, I think, in one way, as Eliot's '‘Marina'. But, as well as this skimmer of transcendence and the visionary, there is the firm foothold in history, there's the naming of people, places, the allusion to the clearances, and this makes it part also of the Gaelic tradition." Other Statements about Hallaig and the music: "Passing the memorial cairn to the Gaelic poet, Sorley MacLean, and stunning scenery, we came to the deserted township of Hallaig where they tethered children to pegs to stop them sliding over the cliff. Adding to the excitement of the coastal path were eagles soaring above and recent landslides necessitating diversions along the shore." "Bennett pulls off a track like Hallaig - a tribute to the late Skye poet Sorley MacLean. The cut starts with a recording of the poet reading, with a percussive and semi-orchestral backing. It concludes with a quite beautiful tune written for the poet’s wife Rennie."

THE GEOGRAPHY OF HALLAIG

Hallaig, on the south-east corner of Raasay and looking across the inner Sound to the Scottish mainland, is perhaps the most famous individual clearance site anywhere in the Highlands. The township is an easy walk of about half an hour from the road at North Fearns, and the remaining houses lie near the top of a grassy glen above a vast stone-built sheep-pen and a shepherd’s cottage-constucted from the stones of many of the original houses, after the township was cleared. As with so many other clearance sites, the situation is beautiful, sheltered, fertile; It is obvious why the people formed such strong attachments to their homes, their families and surrounding land.