Four Seasons in a Day review – loose and sometimes murky Irish border doc

In Benedict Anderson’s 1983 book Imagined Communities, the political scientist and writer notes that “regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each,” a nation is conceived by many to be “a deep, horizontal comradeship” – one that stretches on indefinitely, through time and space.

Four Seasons in a Day is a documentary that investigates the assurance of this shared horizontal. Passengers of the Carlingford Lough ferry stare out, searching the same rolling waves, eyes peeled on the same shoreline, all wedged between the inflexible sky and sea. Yet their commentary diverges, communality evaporating in the sharp wind. Director Annabel Verbeke achieves this disparity by editing together different conversations from within different vehicles, a staccato beat of opinions concerning Ireland, Brexit, Britain and shifting identity soundtracking the otherwise serene journey.

The documentary loosely floats around a few people travelling across or living around the border between Northern Ireland. Despite the literal fluidity of this border distinguished only by a red buoy floating in the Carlingford Lough – and the shifting political definition of the border – the spectre of nationality hangs over every conversation. Irish identity is the magnetic centre of these interactions, repelling some and drawing others together.

Brexit and its knotted, uneven consequences complicate these conversations, tinging them with a horrifying clarity. There is an urgency which pervades the film and its people, who muse on their future passages, wondering aloud how difficult they could be with potential restrictions. Verbeke uses these moments to make sense of the deceptive slipperiness of national identity, thoughtlessly espoused by some and intrinsic to another’s livelihood (as is the case for Carlingford’s oyster farmers).

Verbeke spends no time laying out the history of the area; instead she cleverly signals a change in cultural terrain through the flash of a flag. The Irish flag and Union Jack are liberally dotted around the land on either side of the Lough, decorating the sky in a series of steady, open shots. Yet in the long interludes set on the ferry there is only endless blue, grey and green, enveloping the onlookers in its natural tones. While Verbeke tells the story in efficient cinematic swoops, the subjects of her documentary remain murky, swimming beneath predictable opinions and relying on the audience to discern their true characters.

In an early scene, one of the passengers teaches her children how to ascertain their location through the shifting terrain they are sailing past: “You know you’re in Northern Ireland because those are the Mourne Mountains.” Four Seasons in a Day understands that the evolving figment of the nation is unfair, a “horizontal community” that is inherently uneven. But Verbeke suggests that the mountain range which infringes on the cold sky is stable, something reliable to anchor their identity.

Four Seasons in a Day is available to stream True Story from 17 February.