Though flawed, How Harry Became A Tree would probably qualify as the most effective example of homegrown bucolic melodrama since Neil Jordan’s Butcher Boy adaptation. A generally unremarkable but very amiable affair, it’s enhanced no end by Colm Meaney’s demented central performance as the portery old lunatic whose increasingly bizarre behaviour culminates in the fate indicated by the title – and the quality control throughout exceeds that often attained by Irish feature releases.

Directed by Serb film-maker Goran Paskaljevic but filmed here and set in bleak 1920s rural Ireland, it’s the overwrought but intriguing chronicle of an epic personality clash and power-struggle between two sworn enemies. The godforsaken, eternally rain-soaked kip of Skillet just isn’t big enough for both Harry (Meaney), a widowed curmudgeon, and George (Adrian Dunbar), a local publican, entrepreneur, shopkeeper and womaniser extraordinaire. There’s bad blood between the pair dating back decades, and no ceasefire is asked or given.

In yet another impressively intense outing, Cillian Murphy plays Gus, the son still living at home with Harry – he marries a none-more-innocent-looking cailín named Eileen (Condon), but Gus’s shyness and introversion renders sexual contact extremely awkward, so the girl takes to letting worldly-wise George fuck her properly (in the 1920s!!). When the news reaches Harry’s ears, the stage is set for tragedy, leavened by copious helpings of genuine comedy, most of it derived from Harry’s increasingly frenzied rage.

Paskaljevic, the director, has claimed that some of Harry is based on the fallen Balkan statesman Slobodan Milosevic, though the story itself is adapted from a Chinese fable and doesn’t end in a war-crimes trial. The resulting film is both visually innovative and dramatically involving, with not a bad performance in sight, and would seem to be the standout Irish release of the last year or so.