James Doherty | Breathe / 2015

learning how to breathe

by Douglas Messerli

 

Theo James Krekis (screenplay), James Doherty (director) Breathe / 2015 [14 minutes]

 

This short Irish film directed by James Doherty presents yet another picture of a young effeminate boy growing up in a family that finds it difficult to accept anything but stereotypical societal notions of the male gender. Particularly, in this case, the family are members of the Irish Travellers, a traditionally peripatetic indigenous group of people who speak either English or Shelta, mostly living in Ireland. Like the Romani they travel about in carts and caravans, and basically isolate themselves when it comes to marriage from the general settled population. However, they are not related to the Romani people but are of Indo-Aryan origin, who perhaps broke off from the regular Irish populations during the Cromwell conquest of Ireland in the 1600s.

    They are known for their music, their intricate embroidery and beadwork of their clothing and pouches, and for their expertise in knuckle-boxing.

    Indeed, the film begins with the father Patrick (John Connors) attempting to teach his young son, Francie (Lee O’Donoghue) to fight, but the boy will not and cannot successfully box with his young peers, and is soon knocked over with a bloody nose, a great embarrassment for the battling Patrick.

     Francie, moreover, has difficulties breathing and regular uses an inhaler, which means that this particular family has probably visited a doctor, despite the fact the group, by and large, believe in faith healings.

    Patrick is terrified of his son becoming what he describes as a soft man, clearly suggesting his worries that he might be homosexual, although he never uses the world, nor alludes to queer or other such terms. While the other boys fight, Francie plays with his dog. And the other children do most particularly call him a queer, even though they are scolded by their fathers for using the word. And in the background, Patrick quietly fumes for what he has heard the boy’s peers say, knowing also that the fathers think his boy is soft.

   At some moments we watch him take out his frustrations on a punching bag while Francie stands quietly, looking on, clearly knowing that he is not meeting his father’s expectations.

    Even when Francie does a simple thing like crossing his legs, his father corrects him, suggesting he will do himself harm, even though the boy counters with a simple statement, “Well, it’s comfy.”

    Francie’s mother Bridie (Lynn Rafferty) begs her husband to let the boy be who is. But when, at one point, Francie rouges his lips with his mother’s lipstick canister, even she is taken aback,

immediately scolding him for his experimentation and quickly wiping away the lipstick before her husband sees it. But she cannot finish the task before Patrick returns and seeing what has transpired and despite her pleas to leave her son alone, the father severely beats his son for "trying to be a girl."

    Soon after, he encounters his friends discussing their son’s boxing skills in a pub, but growing silent the moment Patrick joins them. He realizes, obviously, that they have been also gossiping about Francie, and several scolds them for their braggart ways.

    The troubled father awakens his son in the middle of the night and, gun in hand, takes the boy deep into the woods. We are terrified by what might happen. But his intention is not to punish Francie, but to teach him how to shoot wild deer. But the boy is exhausted by the time they reach their destination.

    Patrick lectures the boy about his own father having taken him to the very spot when he was even younger, teaching him how to respect the land, his own people, their way of life. He forces the gun into the boy’s hands, but Francie can hardly stand by this point. Patrick takes up the gun and shoots, missing the buck. But by this time his son cannot even stand and soon after collapses.

    He tries to find the boy’s inhaler, but he has left it behind, and he is forced to pick up the child in his arms and rush back toward the long distance home. But as he himself falls from the weight and running, the boy appears to be dead. He shouts for the boy to breathe, crying out in pain and despair, begging the boy to “wake up so, please.” But there is no response, and it appears that the boy is dead.

    In horror he continues to attempt to resuscitate the child without success; but finally the boy’s hand jerks, his eyes flicker, and he comes back to life, once again taking in the air around him.

    In the last scene the boy sits, alive, on the couch. And it is clear that Patrick would rather have a live effeminate son as opposed to a dead one. Yet, it is also clear that this future gay child will have enormous difficulties in the years ahead given the culture into which he was born.

 

Los Angeles, December 14, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2025).