vernacular memoirs collected in the 1920s and '30s from residents of the Great Blasket, an island off the Kerry coast evacuated by the Irish government in 1953 and made a national park in 1989. "Veteran cinematographer Haskell Wexler gives The Secret of Roan Inish an effortlessly elemental look. Without ostentation or self-consciousness, the film immerses you in the spume, fog and glare of the seaside life, with its temporal mysteries and its organic metamorphoses. Mason Daring's spare, traditional Irish score adds one more layer of melancholy atmosphere," noted Scott Rosenberg of SFGate. Although in the original novel the story takes place in Scotland, the filmmakers decided to have the film take place in Ireland for practical reasons. According to John Sayles in the director's commentary, most of the film was shot in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland, with some scenes being filmed on the Isle of Mull in Argyll, Scotland. Over 1,000 girls were tested for the role of Fiona, which required the actress to be "Thin, underweight, pale complexion, but perky and not afraid of water." Restoration In 2020, the UCLA Film and Television Archive made a digitally restored print of the film. Reception Critical response It holds a 96% "Certified Fresh" and average rating of 7.8/10 on review site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 45 reviews. Scott Rosenberg of SFGate describes it as being "a lot like the island it's named after: It seems to occupy a time of its own, cut off from the speed and overload of contemporary life and drifting to its own ancient rhythms." Critic Stephen Holden, film critic for The New York Times, liked the film's direction. He wrote, "The Secret of Roan Inish'' is the first film directed by Mr. Sayles that could be described as visually rhapsodic. Photographed by Haskell Wexler on Ireland's rugged northwestern seacoast, it is a cinematic tone poem in which man and nature, myth and reality flow together in a way that makes them ultimately indivisible." References External links The Secret of Roan Inish film trailer at YouTube 1994 films 1990s adventure films 1990s children's fantasy films 1994 fantasy films 1994 independent films American fantasy films American independent films County Donegal in fiction English-language Irish films Films about animals Films about mermaids Films based on Canadian novels Films based on Celtic mythology Films based on British novels Films directed by John Sayles Films scored