Cultural Dessert

'The Banshees of Inisherin' by Martin McDonagh

18 November 2022

Last Friday we were at the Curzon cinema at Milton Keynes Gallery to see 'The Banshees of Inisherin', the new film written and directed by Martin McDonagh. If you are familiar with McDonagh's previous plays and films, including 'The Lieutenant of Inishmore', 'Hangmen' (reviewed here in March 2016), 'In Bruges',  'The Guard' and 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri', you will have an idea of what to expect. 'The Banshees of Inisherin' is a very black comedy - incredibly funny but with some brutal violence. Set on a small island, off the coast of Ireland, the film reunites the stars of 'In Bruges', Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, together with a terrific performance from Kerry Condon (who was in 'Three Billboards'). Farrell and Gleeson play two friends who spend every afternoon together in the village pub, until one day Colm (Gleeson) decides, for no obvious reason, that he no longer likes Pádraic (Farrell) and doesn't want to speak to him ever again. Pádraic's attempts to understand and reverse this change of heart lead to a series of increasingly violent confrontations between the two former best friends. (Warning: animals never fare well in Martin McDonagh stories.) The film is beautifully shot, laugh-out-loud funny, shocking and moving. I enjoyed it as an absurdist black comic tale. But when I belatedly (on the journey home from the cinema) spotted an underlying allegory (which I won't give away here) I began to wonder whether this is Martin McDonagh's masterpiece. Much as I felt about the enigmatic film 'Caché' by Michael Haneke (reviewed here in May 2006) I now want to see 'The Banshees of Inisherin' again immediately to test my theories on what it's really about.

Labels: Film

posted by Robin Simpson @ 3:33 pm