The Banshees of Inisherin

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

I thought this movie was great. Loved the humour.
I’m not really into film theory etc like some others here - but I though there was something to the sympathetic way Padraic treated creatures like his animals and Dominic vs how he was treated by Colm and the police officer etc. Maybe he just had a greater need for companionship and would tolerate a lot more than most of the other people. (Shrug emoji)

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

Ohhhhhh that is clever and I didn't catch that

Or you know, what I said above more coherently (I don’t blame you for scrolling through previous posts)

the line from this that’s sticking with me is when the pub owner tells padraic that he’s “one of life’s good guys”

Yeah. So many small memorable moments in this like that.

Oh yeah, I didn’t actually write about the two main characters.

Pádraic is brilliant and tragic and Farrell sells the role so much. I found it hard to laugh much at him despite the obvious comedic aspects to the character - all the scenes with Jenny (the donkey) in the house are far less “haha, the big eejit” when he’s living by himself with the cow and the pony.

Obviously the confrontation in the pub is the best scene but quite honestly he shines in every scene with everyone! When he says about burning down the house with all that hurt and pride and just faith in this obviously mad thing to do - so great.

Colm is such an interesting character. I really enjoyed the confession scenes with the priest, just great contrast in their temperaments, but somehow they seem more suited as friends than Colm and Pádraic.

But then again, Colm spends the whole film pulling away from what seems to have been the main relationship in his life, so you never see them interact during better times. You do get reflections of what their friendship must have been like: the boring chat, the honesty, the fact that Colm still listens to Pádraic and appears to agree with him even when Pádraic confronts him in the village pub in front of everyone they know.

Colm sitting with the Garda and laughing seems to Pádraic like he is flaunting it, like, I’d rather be friends with the biggest cunt in town than you, and Gleeson plays these less savoury aspects of his character very well.

Honestly loved them, they’ve worked together so well previously and I hope they do again

gyac, you've won me over. I'm gonna watch bits of it again tonight.

Colin Farrell's character is constantly called 'dull' and there's never an instance where he is!

I could never go with this movie after Gleeson cuts off his fingers , too silly and it doesnt work as a Civil War allegory either. If anything, its used as window dressing.

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

finally saw this, while knowing essentially nothing (tbf i'd seen 'in bruges' so i knew it wasn't going to be a frolic) of what to expect

anyway, deeply fucked up and grebt. kerry condon was fantastic. incredible performances all around, and not least by colin farrell's eyebrows (and, honestly, the animals)

https://i.postimg.cc/9f01rYMk/reshpecktabiggle.jpg

The miniature donkey was my favorite non human character in a live action film in like forever