The Banshees of Inisherin

Interrupting Christmas Eve drinking solely cos this is incredible and deserves a thread. The scenery, the portrayals of rural life and loneliness, the dialogue. I loved it and I have many thoughts but I will try and think of something more to say because I loved this a lot.

Cool. Saw the trailer and didn’t quite know what to make of it.

Discussed earlier on the In Bruges thread I think

i watched this earlier this week actually and was surprised there hadn't been a thread on it.

i liked it although i wouldn't say it fully landed with me immediately upon viewing. some good lines and a to-be-expected great performance by farrell, sure, but i was having trouble figuring out the point of it all--imo it's not really much about friendship contrary to what i had been led to believe. i'll do a spoiler for the rest of this i guess:

the reading that i heard after the fact that worked for me was the idea that colm and padraic are representing two conflicting impulses in one person, specifically a creative/artistic person. that made a lot of sense to me and better explained the mutually assured destruction ending as sort of a pessimistic take on being able to find a balance between being out in the world having relationships vs. creating some sort of lasting work

I thought this movie fucking sucked. Such a weird juxtaposition of comedy with relentlessly dark subject matter and completely superficial characters. The only reason this movie is getting any attention whatsoever is that someone errantly judged it as being profound and everyone hopped on the bandwagon.

I don't think it's "profound," but I liked it. Mostly for Farrell's performance and for the pervasive sense of isolation and smallness — of the island, its social circles and the mindsets and worldviews of the residents. The sister is the most sympathetic character by some distance, and I was glad she at least got the hell out.

Come Anticipate Martin McDonagh's 'In Bruges'

Banshees is fantastic. I can never remember which McDonagh brother is which, but this is a lot like John Michael's Calvary. The small island grudges thing reminded me of Michael Powell's Edge Of The World too.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, October 22, 2022 8:22 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I haven't liked a movie this guy's done but I do want to see Colin Farrell get an Oscar so ...

― Eric H., Saturday, October 22, 2022 9:27 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Saturday, October 22, 2022 9:33 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I liked Calvary, so that's good news to me

― feed me with your chips (zchyrs), Saturday, October 22, 2022 9:46 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

First half was a great movie about how difficult it is for men to maintain long term friendships but then it gets progressively more daft for the sake of some high drama

― Saxophone Of Futility (Michael B), Saturday, October 22, 2022 9:58 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Has this been released everywhere yet? It's one of my favorites this year.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, October 29, 2022 8:29 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Gonna watch a preview on Wednesday.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, October 29, 2022 8:35 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Saw it the other night. Pretty good I thought but I did how many people attending where thinking more 'quirky Irish comedy' than 'Martin McDonagh film'

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, October 29, 2022 8:43 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

I accept this film as a microcosm of social conflict and dysfunction during the Irish Civil War--without the English as a common enemy the Irish start attacking each other. But dang was that slog to sit through.

― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Saturday, November 5, 2022 12:00 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

It was waaaay too nice.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, November 5, 2022 12:16 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

three weeks pass...
I liked Banshees, the first time McDonagh has made me think of Beckett (or think of him in terms of Beckett, anyway). Colin Farrell really is good, would be happy for him to get some awards out of it.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Saturday, November 26, 2022 1:21 AM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

the farrell performance is so excellent

i never quite fell for the film but i understand why others have

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, November 26, 2022 1:28 AM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

same

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, November 26, 2022 1:32 AM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I liked that the movie resisted easy resolutions — part of its point I guess. But for sure Farrell is the main reason to see it. Everyone else is good too, it’s a strong cast.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Saturday, November 26, 2022 2:45 AM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

The funniest thing for me was hearing people express how boring they found some other people.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, November 26, 2022 7:33 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I thought it was great, want a mini donkey

― akm, Sunday, November 27, 2022 3:35 AM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's weird that anyone finds the 'other characters' boring, there are only a handful of them and I wouldn't have described Siobhan as boring, or Dominic, who is just tragic.

― akm, Sunday, November 27, 2022 9:44 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh wait, RAG means the characters in the movie describing other characters as dull, I misinterpreted that.

― akm, Sunday, November 27, 2022 9:45 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

also, I guess it's finally time to say Colin Farrel is an excellent actor; treating his good stuff as an exception these days doesn't give him the credit he deserves.

― akm, Sunday, November 27, 2022 9:46 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I found this facile and predictable in the same manner as Triangle of Sadness, another one that left me cold

― “Cheeky cheeky!” she trills, nearly demolishing a roadside post (forksclovetofu), Sunday, November 27, 2022 9:57 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Quite enjoyed this last week. It is dark as fook though.
I liked the sister too. Know I've seen her somewhere else.

I’m awake for no reason, it’s Christmas morning, let’s do this.

Firstly the film is very obviously allegorical to me. I’m sure everyone else got this too, there are several very blunt comparisons, but I haven’t seen it mentioned on here.

The elements of the film are very simple: a handful of characters, quite straightforward dialogue, some very clear allusions. I don’t think you can understand this film without understanding at least a little bit about the cultural context, though I think it succeeds outside that too.

Even the island’s name, Inisherin (Inis Éireann, in Irish, “The island of Ireland”) is a joke about this. You’ve got some classic elements: the priest, the banshee, the Garda. It’s a village with one pub and one church. Everything is very claustrophobic, like it is in Ireland itself; everyone knows other people’s business and who their families are. Mrs O’Riordan (the post office owner) is so small town rural Ireland, it made us laugh.

How successful an allegory is it? Well, I guess it depends on what that sets out to do within the film. There’s a few lines that dance around it, like when the Garda says about going to executions on the mainland and says something like “It’s the Free State executing the IRA…or was it the other way around?” Inisherin is interesting in the context of the war, immediately removed from it in a way that very few parts of Ireland actually were. The classic bit of civil war fiction that everyone in Ireland knows is The Sniper, which was on the national curriculum when I was at school. While the people on Inisherin view the events of the mainland as happening to other people, outside the microcosm of their island, in reality the civil war ticked most people in some way. Colm and Pádraic’s feud drags absolutely everyone into it. You can be certain everyone at Mass on a Sunday knows everything that’s happened.

I’m not certain the allegory sets out to tell us much about the war, but in any terms these are clear: it drags everyone into it, it’s brutal and hard to explain to outsiders, there are things you can never get over. Pretty straightforward. I think it works as an allegory but it’s more loosely allegorical than being constant pointed references. Given that most people watching this will not necessarily know anything about the civil war, that’s fine! (Another thing I thought was clearly directed at people from outside Ireland was everyone’s overuse of “feckin”, which I didn’t like. Absolutely nobody says it that much but it struck me as a modification to keep it from being rated higher? As I say, not one of my favourite parts, and the only one that came across as unenjoyably stage Irish.)

It’s really funny. Not like laugh out loud funny, but the humour is dark as McDonagh’s work tends to be and I loved it. Some highlights: “no other news”, the confession scenes, every single scene with Mrs McCormick including the one at the end where she’s sitting watching the lads like Death himself. (Which is what a banshee does after all.) Pádraic trying to hide behind the wall from her is great, he thinks he’s escaped her but no, Death is inescapable.

Siobhán’s clothes are colourful and stand out, the same way this “weird woman” stands out from everyone else committed to island life. I’ve loved Kerry Condon since Rome and she was so great in this? She made every scene she was in. It was good for the film as well, not just relying on standout performances from the leads, but strong throughout the cast. By the way, the publican and the fella at the bar (his echo) are Jon Kenny and Pat Shortt, a long-standing comedy duo well known in Ireland, and they had a series called Killinascully set in a rural town. It was a very different kind of humour but I’m guessing McDonagh was a fan. Anyway, I thought that was an amazing bit of casting.

Barry Keoghan was great in a difficult role: sympathetic but still comedic and heartbreaking too.

I have a lot more thoughts about this but I want to go back to sleep now.

I'm not usually a fan of McDonagh but this actually stuck with me and I will probably re-watch at some point, probably because the humour in it is dark and awkward and quite unfunny! From the trailer I thought this might be a crowd pleasing shite Irish comedy of bucolic wrongness with lots of fecking and so on, but there is some depth here and genuine sadness and I'm always a sucker for a sad movie with a very lovable border collie character.

Siobhán being the long suffering clever person on the island delivers the strongest mortal blow to Colm's turgid pomposity by correcting him that Mozart is from the 18th century ... actually!

xp this was also my fear, it was absolutely not that. Was laughing at some of the comments upthread which clearly expected it to be that. And yes, that Mozart line is great.

This was very good. My wife thought Siobhan and her eventual departure represented the "brain drain" that afflicted Ireland in the 20th century. I just finished the book We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Northern Island by Fintan O'Toole a few weeks ago and some of that was on my mind while I watched this.

Thanks for the added cultural context gyac. I also thought it was allegorical and took the Civil War references in that sense too — without knowing a lot of the details but understanding the through line of cycles of recrimination and contrariness. And yeah, Kerry Condon is great.

What I like about best about Colm is telling the priest in confession that we might as well all just pack up and go home if
punching a copper was a sin!

punching out the copper was his real confession

This was very good. My wife thought Siobhan and her eventual departure represented the "brain drain" that afflicted Ireland in the 20th century. I just finished the book We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Northern Island by Fintan O'Toole a few weeks ago and some of that was on my mind while I watched this.

Joyce, not Yeats. Point stands.

Apologies for my weird typo above (“Northern Island”).

it’s better to be kind than interesting.

Colm's melodies were so shit

Strongly disliked this, but the performances were largely good

^^^^^

why did you dislike it so much?

I liked this a lot. Reminded me a bit of Three Colors: White and also of Bresson.

I didn't dislike it all -- I found it unmemorable except for Colin Farrell's double takes and his chemistry with Brendan Gleason.

*at all

this is incredible and deserves a thread

I thought this movie fucking sucked.

Oh, great, now what do we do?

and his imaginary bread van xp

i dunno, maybe i didn't dislike it so much as it disappointed me? i was hoping for more. Found the story pat, the characterizations wonderfully realized but not particularly three dimensional and the direction intrusive and showy.

I’ve enjoyed Colin Farrell in Minority Report and in In Bruges but otherwise find myself allergic to him… haven’t made it more than 30 minutes into The New World, enjoyed Killing Of A Sacred Deer despite his presence, skipped The Lobster

That said there’s nothing I like more tho when I have the feeling of “coming around” to an actor who I previously disenjoyed (Nicole Kidman in To Die For broke my bias toward her and now I love her in everything). Hoping this movie does the same for me re Colin Farrell, ?

Yeah very interested to hear what you think, fgti!

funny to have Farrell recognisable at the moment isn't it. Last few things I've seen him in he seems to be intentionally trying to disguise himself.

He's also solid in the new After Yang.

Yeah I'm hoping I come around to Mr. Farrell and I'm going to watch this tonight. It really sucks to feel like I can't watch The New World because I just dislike his face in my eyeballs so much

There aren't many actors I feel this aversion toward, Gabriel Byrne and Stephen Rea are two others that spring to mind (so maybe I just like my Irish actors all silly-cheekbones like Barry Keoghan and Cillian Murphy)

Well I’ve got good news for you about the rest of the cast

I think it’s now past time to admit that Farrell is very good.

God knows I've tried to like Liam Neeson.

I was probably already a Farrell follower leading into it, but his take on Fright Night made me a forever fan.

In defence of Farrell, even if I don’t enjoy watching him act, he is v much a ride

and, I must say, he's gotten handsomer as he's aged.

He's outrageously pretty. I think that sometimes works against him.

He's powdery and almost feminine in After Yang, a mode I've never seen him in and it suits him.

I think he's almost always good, and for such a pretty guy his performances have no discernible vanity.

^otm

it wasn't an aversion to the Irish Kevin Webster that put me off this movie before I'd even watched it, it's McDonagh who put me off watching because normally I can't even get to the end of his movies I hate them that much.

Isn't Bobby Gillespie in danger of being typecast

Well I loved this. Colin Farrell’s performance was just wonderful tbh!!

From wiki, quoting Guy Lodge writing for Variety: “What begins as a doleful, anecdotal narrative becomes something closer to mythic in its rage and resonance: McDonagh has long fixated on the most visceral, vengeful extremes of human behavior, but never has he formed something this sorely heartbroken from that fascination.”

That’s a good description. The confrontation in the pub where he’s talking about everyone he’ll remember and all this hurt emerging has really stuck with me.

I'm curious as to why McDonagh titled two of his plays after two of the three Aran Islands but then set this film on a fictional island instead of setting it on the third of them

In fact, I enjoyed it without it; the pat stuff is so pat it barely plays a role. As a modest (more or less) chamber piece about two characters it's fine on its own, minus any attempt at metaphor or allegory. So I'd say go for it, Aimless, it's barely two hours long.

I’m just trying to ascertain McDonagh’s own goals as the writer and filmmaker. The civil war metaphor is there, and the chamber piece about two characters is there. I don’t know which path McDonagh meant to foreground but either way I think he failed

i don't feel that this aspect is foregrounded, or at least, I don't think assessing the film with the idea that this is paramount and integral to the story does it any service, which clearly this discussion has supported. The thing is it is not a pat metaphor, really, and doesn't really work. AT best it's a messy metaphor. As such I think it adds something, but isn't necessary to appreciate the film, which in my mind works much better as an interpersonal character study.

If only we had some way to know what the director’s intention was!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FmhLdvTXgAAZoXt?format=jpg&name=large

Like, I don’t care if you personally choose to ignore that, as I said upthread gritting my teeth and saying “Death of the author” is basically my only remaining way of enjoying the stuff I did liked. But it’s a total lie to say that obvious link wasn’t intended. It’s really, really, really not remotely a clever film.

every time I see that quote again I want him to die a horrible death, even more.

I mean it would be odd to set the film in that extremely specific period of Irish history if you didn't mean something by it. Of course you could certainly have the same story take place in a contemporary setting but there would be less opportunity for cheap metaphor and donkey-based humour (although there appear to be a not insignificant amount of Americans tweeting about how they thought the film was set in the present day. So who knows)

I liked this film.

I took a lot more away from it about the idea of male stubbornness and refusal to deal with depression/emotions in a healthy way, than the obvious civil war analoy (which was really only a tacked-on couple of comments and didnt seem the point, to me).

jamelle bouie with a souring evaluation of mcdonagh films

https://letterboxd.com/jbouie/film/three-billboards-outside-ebbing-missouri/

That’s a great evaluation. Plenty of people posting in this thread could learn from that!

Saw this last night and never quite believed in it. I've slept on it and in honesty, cast and photography aside (big ifs, sure), this felt televisual to me; if I'd watched it out of the corner of my eye, it could have been a Sunday night misery-porn fiesta to watch before bed - just with a big SCRIPT chucked at it. And because of all that, I felt like the cast - Farrell in particular - were desperately trying to convince the audience that any of this was vaguely plausible. I don't claim to have any deep understanding of the civil war but a couple of times I asked myself out loud 'if this is some cheap allegory for the civil war, then jesus'.

Great thread, ilx.

The Civil War allegory really provides zero of what I liked about the movie, successful or not. To me it works better as an allegory about undiagnosed mental illness, as well as provincial resentments and hostilities. And yes, it works even better than that as an acting showcase, so you could argue McDonough got away with one here.

perhaps the point of the civil war allegory is that while colm's stand was, from his perspective, principled, he ultimately hurt himself most of all. he must represent the anti-treaty side of the conflict imo.

he was after all within his rights to demand full independence from padraig. but the bitterness with which he pursued this end showed that he cared more about the conflict itself than the freedom he said he wanted. i think the movie is saying something like that. i do not know enough about irish history to say whether this is a fair evaluation of the IRA though.

This individual thinks the film is more telling about Covid-19.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/feb/14/cut-off-from-the-main-how-films-about-islands-reflect-our-anxious-divided-times

i hope that individual got a pass mark for whatever module that collection of sentences was originally submitted for

if mcdonagh has the moral fibre to set his next work in eighties london and tackle whatever complex tableau of identity and trauma most conveniently presents itself to the characters thus situated I'll at least take back some of my current most deeply established opinions about him- that he is the cheapest type of faux profound gifted stylist. hes barely a level above the political or social commentary that could be reasonably attributed to a gaultier collection in 1997 oh how clever how daring nb ive still not seen this

Uhhhh do you mind darraghmac my enjoyment of the film wasn’t affected at all by the stuff that doesn’t matter to me

xxp

yeah but what about the graun piece? (ho ho ho). I used to know this guy known as DJ Dave who once made this hilarious "don't take smack video" whilst on a vid-editing course offered to the terminally unemployed in the mid 90's. He was a fucking idiot, but still probably better suited to writing allegorical dramas about [whatever] than this cunt, still more talented.

nb i still think mcdonagh can write dialogue that gives actors a great platform which isnt nothing

hes been very ill served by plaudits is i think my take

I think it's more a case of good actors managing to cast off from a rotten platform than t'other way round.

but I did 3 times watch it over the christmas period and enjoyed it tbh

its fair possible that im only avoiding this because of the weight attributed it! if nobody gave mcdonagh undue credit thematically id enjoy all his stuff perhaps

insofar as i grew up at all or anywhere i grew up within three miles of seventy percent of the exterior shots so i will out of duty catch it at some stage im sure

A smart friend whose tastes in film are at best erratic recommended Calvary, which somehow didn't catch my attention in 2014; we had no idea the directors were related, for starters. It's better about its Local Colo(u)r than Banshees, though it collapses into meanwhile-back-at staging. It didn't earn its ending. Brendan Gleason, relying on that Stephen Rea thing of investing monosyllables with untapped reserves of feeling, is by far the best thing about it.

I finally got around to watching this yesterday, and here are my thoughts. I had them before opening this delightful thread, but I did my due diligence and caught up so my words may be colored by the opinions already stated here:
- The beginning of the movie sets itself up as this parable about the man who thought he was interesting in opposition to the man he feels is dull (but identifies as "nice"). It quickly becomes clear they live in a very small community and avoiding interaction is going to be impossible. Then! We get this self-mutilation threat should the nice man continue his interactions. Now we're cooking!
- This kind of works for a while. We get the sidebar bits with Dominic and Siobhán, which are delightful if somewhat harrowing in Dominic's case.
- We get some indications, not-so-subtly dropped, that there is a civil war going on across the way. Uh oh, I smell an allegory.
- It wasn't initially clear but that was a bad smell. It gets worse.

Overall, great acting, excellent dialogue in parts, the plot as a whole is kind of a clunker

McDonagh definitely writes the slightly exaggerated dialogue that makes the characters come off a bit larger, definitely reminiscent of what you get in stage plays where people in the cheap seats might not be getting all the small bits and expressions so everything's a little over-telegraphed when it's on film. I would question whether it's intentional that the characters come off as caricatures, but I don't think as a writer he's even considered doing things differently.

There's this kind of belligerent Tarantino-ness to his dialogue which is pretty fun but maybe tiring after awhile

I saw the trailer for this a few months ago and, for whatever reason, figured it wasn't for me. But a friend urged me to see it after relating a recent situation in my own life virtually identical to Pádraic's; equally blindsided, no explanation (Colm did have one), a friend of 50 years.

I can't say for sure how I would have felt absent that--I don't know that it would have made all that much difference--but I really liked it. I don't know if Colm's extreme course of action (without being more specific than that if you haven't seen it) was necessary--I think the film would have been as strong without that--but obviously it's central to the film. Going to hazard a guess that I wouldn't think nearly as highly of the two acting categories that won AAs (only one of which I'll get around to seeing) as the two here that were nominated. Also think Brendan Gleeson should have been nominated.

He was!

Pádraic is genuinely nice. I was thinking about two people I have a certain degree of involvement with in my small town who are always posting those terrible memes on Facebook about how to properly treat people and what it means to be a good person. They're both a few years older than I am. I can't think of two ruder, less nice people. Are they even remotely aware of the disconnect between the stuff they post and the way they actually conduct themselves?

i’m not puttin’ me donkey outside when i’m sad either.

The tiny donkey was my favorite character in the movie.

I can't believe there were two prominent donkey films this year. That's got to be a record (by two) for almost every year ever.

I loved the emotional support donkey

The donkey was the the only redeeming part of the movie, it's fate was a sadistic turn in the plot.

This was highly entertaining, mostly because of the acting and the beautiful locations took me back to my visit to Inishmore. Didn't really think it had as much to say as it thought it did.

I think you could just enjoy it for all of that, and also for the Local Hero-type humour ("Let's not skip ahead..."). But I did think the film's central theme as explained by Colm (give or take a century) was valid and handled well. The only thing I question is Colm's threat, which seemed a little gimmicky (plus I'm squeamish).

https://bansheesthegame.com/

I can't believe there were two prominent donkey films this year. That's got to be a record (by two) for almost every year ever.

― clemenza, Sunday, March 19, 2023 9:39 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

There were actually donkeys in four Oscar-nominated films: Banshees, EO, Triangle of Sadness, and Navalny.

Didn’t really do it for me

not enough donkey

Among other things

This has pretty much shrunk in my imagination since watching it. Still, I can't quite shake the directness and obscenity of the central conceit - to the point that with people who know the reference, I'll frequently say something like 'are you going to make me cut off one of my fingers?'

This makes me wonder if, a bit like with the lol swearing of In Bruges, it'll endure in a vaguely cultish/catchphrase kind of fashion.

Saw this last night. All I can add to this discourse is that the donkey shared a name with my recently deceased cat so its death and aftermath was hard for me to watch.

just heard McDonagh on the radio blathering on about "petty outrage" and "people with an axe to grind". He's British to the core.

Based on the audience response here, somebody needs to sign that donkey to a multi-film contract before it acquires an agent.

xp in relation to the type of criticism mentioned upthread?

I would guess so, was just half listening and thinking who is this wanker. He was complaining about dialogue that is tailored towards what the audience expects, but he went short of using "woke". Then the interview finished and I realised who it was and it all made perfect sense!

Take yr soup & sit down Martin

I'll give a more comprehensive report if I'm unfortunate enough to hear it again next I'm falling asleep with WS on the radio.

its in relation to conversations from some theatres and groups about moderating language from his earlier plays i believe