Reviews of Time after Time
"A coming together - a sharing from the heart."
Bobby Bunningurr, Elder of the Maliburr tribe, Arnhem Land

Cool clips, even if they often fly under the radar
Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times
Excerpt:
Mairéid Sullivan and Ben Kettlewell
"Time After Time" (Lyrebird Media) "This colorful journey celebrates the cultures of Ireland, America and Australia in a flowing stream of music, poetry and visual imagery.
Created by Irish singer Mairéid Sullivan and guitarist Ben Kettlewell, the film includes songs from Sullivan's CDs, poetry readings and speeches from great Native Americans, juxtaposed against pictures reaching from a close-up of a tiny Australian butterfly to a view of the expanding universe. Rich, embracing and informative as music and video, "Time After Time" is an exhilarating example of visual world music at its best. Available at www.lyrebirdmedia.com." Full review/article can be found here

"A lyrical and jubilant interpretation of the human spirit through time and cultures
- a visual and aural feast to remind us of our common harmonious ancestry."
Brian Kavanagh A.S.E. Film Editor and Lifetime Achievement Award recipient,
Australian Screenwriters Guild

"as good as Microcosmos...Baraka"
Darren Lambert from SpiritofBaraka.com

"Time after Time, a film shot in Ireland, North America and Australia that celebrates the great heritage of ancient Celtic, American and Australian peoples. Time after Time is beautifully shot, its style comparable to other films found on this website. Yet Time after Time has its own theme and style.

Time after Time is a film that highlights the great beauty and diversity of the landscapes and peoples of Ireland, North America and Australia. The colourful landscapes of each of the countries is captured magnificently in Time after time. The richness of colours gives a wonderful feel to the film.

The soundtrack for Time after Time has the presence of the human voice. Poems and songs accompany the diverse music of the film. Although not scripted dialog or narration I found the presence of a voice unusual at first. However I soon found the initial poem adding to the mood.

After an introduction the film has a chapter for each of the countries shown in the film. The beautiful coastline and woods of Ireland make a beautiful subject. Watching the images in Time after Time gives me a great sensation as they remind me of my own Celtic homeland of Cornwall, England. Most images are of the Ireland most people are familiar with, yet many images show a side perhaps we don't know. The Celtic poems and songs add greatly to the mood. The underwater images suggest a great diversity to the filmmakers techniques. The image of Celtic symbols give a real sense of history.

Time after Time has a change of mood as the film continues onto North America. The beautiful winter landscapes are captured so well a chill fills the air. Time after Time is also warming with the shots of the sun drenched inner heartland of North America. There are shots of paintings from Native American tribes now gone. I felt a similar feeling to that experienced from many scenes in Baraka.

Time after Time ends with Australia. The vast and diverse land and its people are captured. This is one of the best insights into Aboriginal life I have seen, even having spent a year living in Australia. There are great scenes of Australia's bright and elegant wildlife.

Time after Time is a unique film. Its style is individual and yet familiar with many other films. The wildlife scenes as good as Microcosmos, and the capturing of people as good as Baraka. Time after Time's distinct soundtrack and content makes a great film.

Time after Time was created by Maireid Sullivan and Ben Kettlewell. I hope the pair make equally great films in the future."

"Time after Time embraces the viewer with a vision of three rich cultures.
Kevin Childs, legendary Australian author and journalist

"Images, songs and poetry are woven together to create a mesmerizing and enchanting film that propels this art form to a new level. Over 75 minutes we are taken into glorious landscapes and seductive images of Ireland, North America and Australia. Produced, filmed and edited by Maireid Sullivan and Ben Kettlewell, Time after Time is more than a film in that it can be presented in concert with a live performance of the soundtrack. Here are found the old songs and stories that touch us deeply, melded with original compositions.

There is magic here as sublime poetry and ancient song celebrate freedom and echo a world beyond ours. It shows how beauty heals suffering, the wisdom of the original inhabitants of these ancient lands and how, ultimately, although we are but stardust in a vast universe, through a shared understanding, we are one. The result is as moving and affecting as all great art. It's magnificent. I was really moved."


Time after Time Puts Imagery Back in the Cinema
By T.S. Kerrigan, 13 March, 2007, poet, lawyer/judge, arts reviewer, American Reporter Correspondent, Los Angeles, California, USA

LOS ANGELES -- I was raised, like every other kid of my generation, in the movie houses of post-war America. We may have been shamefully seduced by Hollywood, but were blessed by being spared the current deluge of television and mass media in our lives.

When I think of the thousands of films I have seen over the years, I realize most of them were as forgettable as the present crop produced for our delectation by the self-described “dream makers“ of the industry, those representatives of the major studios and independent production companies with a close eye on audience trends and the bottom line. But the exceptions were breathtaking.

Yes, there was a time, even in the recent past, when visionary men and women, however much their struggle and frustration, had a public platform in the world, perceiving the creation of a film as the work of an artist. These rare avis directors and film makers made their contribution in that vein, with most other considerations being subservient to that purpose. Names that easily come to mind, like Wells, Bergmann, Wertmuller and Kubrick, have no equal on the big screen today. They defy comparison with popular phenomena like the Rocky or Star Wars pap of today.

My own belief is that an appreciation of imagery had a great deal to do with the value of their films, and that that appreciation is sadly lacking to today's films. Where does one see movies like "The Lady from Shanghai," "Wild Strawberries," or "Barry Lyndon" today? Not that these films were flawless in their execution - it is hard to forget Ryan O'Neal's anachronistic presence in Barry Lyndon, which otherwise made you feel you were inside a series of paintings of two or three centuries ago - but they were genuine efforts to make film a work of art.

There is not much of that kind of creative power even in the art films that whisk about from one festival to another these days. Along comes "Time After Time," for instance, a film made by Lyrebird Media of Australia, which has won so many honors on the festival circuit of late that one is almost convinced that it couldn't be much good, probably full of the pretentiousness and lack of substance found in so many of the current film festivals here and abroad.

You tend to note (scoffing all the while) that the film attempts to draw parallels between the primitive cultures of ancient Ireland, pre-European America, and Australia and New Zealand. On the surface it sounds a little like one of those dreary specials seen on one of the cultural stations in the small hours of the morning.
But this is, in fact, a film so rich in meaning and so fearless in its presentation that it cannot be linked with any standard genre of filmmaking.

Nothing will prepare the viewer for the extraordinary imagery that keeps coming at you nonstop together with the beautifully integrated songs of Maireid Sullivan, one of the finest pure singers to come out of Ireland in the last fifty years, imagery so powerful that the traditional need for a narrative line is utterly absent.

You want to stop this film and linger over the pictures that come almost too rapidly at you, pictures of places, nature, and people. It's the kind of film you can see over and over and still find something new and meaningful that you missed before.

I have been to Ireland many times in my life and I live in America, but this film shows me aspects of both those places and cultures, especially in the primitive times the film celebrates, of which I was not fully aware. It showed me these things by its consummate evocation of its themes through a chain of stunning images. "Time After Time" speaks in carefully presented lyrical pictures and makes its salient points eloquently and poetically. You never have the sense of being beaten over the head with an idea of the filmmakers.

The work of Ms. Sullivan, Ben Kettlewell, and friends, "Time After Time" is nothing less than a triumph of the eye and the imagination.

The American Reporter Culture Critic Tom Kerrigan is based in Los Angeles. 
[The American Reporter is no longer online]

"A simply must have DVD for all. A most welcome gift!"
Dr Allan Skertchly, Psychologist & Educator, Darwin, Australia
5 December 2009

Time After Time is an enduring timeless masterpiece of contemporary creative cinematography, of inestimable value to all humankind.

Upon initial screening, the impact is stunning-entrancing… indeed mesmerizing, as evocative images and enchanting music and song, caress, cascade, and ultimately captivate completely. Repeated viewing reinforces the beguiling magic, which into memory becomes indelibly imprinted.

Quintessentials of universal culture are embelished with global diversity. Rich lodes of the Global Cultural Commons are exquisitely captured, in as fabulous a piece of world cinema, as is ever likely to be produced.

Oh, that the world devoted more of its energies and talents to the production of invaluable priceless pearls! And that enthralled respondents reflected and acted in sympathy.

All the world’s peoples, especially the influential, the nurturers, and the preservers of our fragile planet, cannot but be powerfully captivated after experiencing Time After Time–a most exceptional universal artistic accomplishment.

A simply must have DVD for all. A most welcome gift!

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