Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the Wee Donkey
Susan Desrosiers reviews The Banshees of Inisherin.
One of the great advantages of living in Rye is the Kino Cinema, tucked away in the heart of the town a few feet from the ancient church of St Mary’s. On rainy days there is nothing better than nestling down there with a hot chocolate or a cheeky merlot and catching the latest movie. Even better if it’s a Tuesday and you can take advantage of the Kino’s two-for-one tickets, which is what I did one very rainy day last week with himself. It was with great anticipation we sat down to watch The Banshees of Inisherin (especially as I had booked a different movie the week before in error!). With echoes of movie reviewer Mark Kermode in my head – he said he hadn’t stopped laughing for the first 30 minutes of the movie – I settled in for some greatly needed guffaws.
So, imagine my initial disappointment that the laughs were few and far between. While there is something quite reminiscent of Father Ted in this portrayal of a friendship gone sour on a lonely Island off the mainland of Ireland, I found the sad undertones much more compelling. Set on the fictional island of Inisherin, it is 1923 and the civil war is raging over on the mainland as Brendan Gleason as Colm and Colin Farrell as Padraic are the friends who become very consciously uncoupled. In a marvellous reunion with director Martin McDonagh, who made the brilliant In Bruges with Gleason and Farrell, we discover early on that Colm has decided he is wasting his time chatting and drinking in the pub with the simple minded Padraic, who likes to regale his friend with stories about his beloved donkey and the things he finds in his pony’s poo. Suddenly aware of his own mortality, Colm wants to leave a legacy, so would rather be composing music or poetry. In Padraic’s eyes, however, he has simply stopped being nice. But according to Colm, no one remembers people for being nice. They remember famous composers like Mozart. Padraic’s response to that is “I don’t!”, which got a rare giggle from the audience.
Much like the dark humour of In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri – McDonagh’s previous award winning films – this is ultimately a tragic tale. The ‘banshees’ of the title are derived from the Irish folklore of female spirits who wail and mourn, signalling the imminent death of a family member. Seemingly omnipresent is the old pipe-smoking village ‘hag’ Mrs McCormack, who everyone tries to avoid but increasingly starts to look like the titular banshee.
The performances of both actors and the rest of the cast are outstanding. But it was the sadness of Padraic over a lost friendship and much more that really touched my heart. Is the director McDonagh trying to depict the outcome of sacrificing love and friendship in favour of a search for immortality? or is this a metaphor for the start of the Irish troubles? Perhaps both. Musically we enjoy Brendan Gleason actually playing the fiddle during small snippets of the wonderful jigs you’d expect to hear in an Irish pub, while the theme music is a haunting rendition of “Polegnala E Todora” from “le Mystere des Voix Bulgares” (no, me either), a Bulgarian folk melody. The islands of Inis Mor and Achill stand in for fictional Inisherin and the cinematography of Ben Davis will have some of us booking our next holiday with a popular Irish airline. Aw, go on…
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