#53: THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

 

Starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, music by Carter Burwell, Pat Shortt, JOn Kenny, Gary Lydon, Shelia Flitton and David Pearse. Written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Running time 114 minutes.

It's 1923 and the Irish civil war is in full swing on the mainland, while on a small island off the coast of Ireland two men's friendship comes to a sudden dramatic end, when folk musician Colm Doherty (Brendan Glesson) tells his life-long friend and drinking buddy, nice but dull, Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) that he no longer wants to be his friend. Colm explains that he wants to spend what life he has left having interesting conversations and creating music, something to mark his existence, and not wasting it listening to Pádraic's increasingly boring conversations about, among other things, the things he found in his pigmy donkey's shit. To prove he's not larking about, Colm threatens to cut off a finger each time Pádraic tries talking to him. 

This is an extraordinary film that aches with sadness, a film about loss, loneliness, and love both lost and longed for. Visually breathtaking, from the first overhead shot of the cloud covered unnamed desolate and wind swept, yet beautiful, island to the last when the camera flies away the way it came, everything about this film is a delight, every performance and every line of dialogue. 

Written and directed by Martin McDonagh whose previous films include Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and In Bruge, Banshees really is one of the best films I've seen all year. Farrrell, who is the main focus of the film is superb bringing a real sense of bewilderment and confusion to the role as he struggles to understand what has happened to the most important relationship in his life. While Glesson brings true depth and sorrow to the role of his ex-friend who yearns for something more from life, and yet neither character is a cypher, or stereotypical. Neither are perfect, and both men have real depth to their characters, Colm is a snob and Pádraic shows he has a mean streak when pushed. The chemistry between the two men is palpable and gives the film its beating heart. 

Wrapped around these two men are the other inhabitants of this tiny island whose lives are effected, quite profoundly, by their falling out. Pádraic's sister Siobhán (Kerry Condon), a young, self educated woman whose whole life has been spent on the island and too yearns to live, then there's Dominic Kearney (Barry Keoghan) the sexually and physically abused son of the island's only police man, a young man desperate for love. And through all of this there's a mysterious hint of the magical at work, strange portents and hints of what is to come, that only become apparent once the film has ended.

Trailed at the cinema for what seems like months, it's a relief that the trailer doesn't try and overplay the humour of this wonderful film, doesn't try to hint at sinister or mysterious forces at play, it's a film hard to define but perhaps that's part of its undeniable charm.

The ending arrives all too soon and leaves no pat answers or conclusion, there's a resolution of sorts, but as in life, it's neither tidy or conclusive.

It is a brilliantly written black comedy with the humour, as black as coal, wrapped up in expertly written dialogue and well-rounded characters. I loved each and every second of it and this will be one of the few films of this year I'll be buying to keep on blu-ray.

Without a shadow of a doubt a 10/10.