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It's a phenomenon that began in Dublin and spread far and wide. Yet the girls who wear pyjamas as daywear, all day every day, aren't interested in grabbing attention. With many tender and often hilarious moments, Pyjama Girls traces the explosive micro-dramas of teenage life against the bleak backdrop of Dublin's inner city flats.
The film focuses on 15 year old Lauren and her best friend Tara. Lauren's future hangs in the balance as she regularly takes part in street violence with rival teen gangs and faces expulsion from school. Over the course of the film we learn about the challenges that life throws her - from her addict mother to the disruptive world of the flats - and understand the crucial importance of her friendship with Tara.
In the booming, crashing world of the flats, it's the boys who make themselves heard. Meanwhile, the pyjama girls express themselves through the visual language of young women - clothes and fashion - in candy pinks, hot purples and brushed cotton: a soft, silent revolution. In a series of intimate vignettes, we gain a vivid insight into their daily lives: the girls’ tenacity amidst the at times grim uncertainty that surrounds them and the oft-quotable bravado that rolls with it.
Director Maya Derrington’s emphatic feature debut is the latest in a series of inspired home-grown feature documentaries, amongst them His & Hers and Colony, exploring an eclectic array of contemporary subjects. (Perhaps we’re entering a new golden age in Irish documentary filmmaking.) Crisply edited by Paul Rowley and featuring a delicious minimalist electronic score from Dennis McNulty, Derrington’s triumph is to craft a keenly observed tour-de-force that, in the grand tradition of all great non-fiction cinema, challenges our way of seeing.
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