A look at the 2023 cinema year has some promising announcements in store, with big names and some subjects looking to salvage something contemporary from the past: Steven Spielberg recalls his cinematic childhood in “The Fabelmans”. Greta Gerwig could score a nice surprise hit with her trendy pink “Barbie”. Indiana Jones returns, Tom Cruise embarks on “Mission: Impossible” for the seventh time, Cate Blanchett sets the pace as conductor in “Tár” and Christopher Nolan unleashes a nuclear inferno with “Oppenheimer.”
Well, right at the start of the year, “The Banshees of Inisherin” comes to the cinemas, a crowd favorite of the better kind, which caused a sensation at the Venice, Toronto and Zurich film festivals and has a good chance of winning at the Oscars from this year. While they’ve lost some of their reputation due to a number of recent scandals, the Golden Globes, which will be handed out on January 10, could be a first clue. The foreign press in Hollywood has nominated the film eight times, so it is ahead of the curve.
Irish director Martin McDonagh has adapted his own piece for his new work. The result is the cinematic equivalent of that one praline in a box that almost everyone who does not like marzipan or brittle can agree with. Screamingly funny and tragic at the same time, sometimes cruel and a little thoughtful, without immediately penetrating into existential depths.
So beautifully filmed, too, that you’ll want to hop on the ferry back to 1923 and head to this fictional Irish island of Inisherin, where the gorgeous sunsets make up for having little else to say or do.
A picturesque shepherd’s decor is far from a promise of happiness, on the contrary. Although the island is quite far from the mainland, the cannons of the Irish Civil War thunder in the background. And perhaps the conflict in the big world is reflected in the moods of those who are supposedly unaffected, when the ordinary still finds its way into the fairytale paradise. Because the film starts with an act that doesn’t often end with it in the cinema, but starts even more rarely: a friendship is broken, quite suddenly, wordlessly, painfully.
One fine day, the sluggish shepherd Pádraic is nothing to his old drinking partner Colm; he is tired of hours of stories about donkey shit and other donkeys, he would rather devote the rest of his life to composing songs and playing the violin.
No more early afternoon bar visits, drama without drama, no fights, no fights. Just a simple, “I just don’t like you anymore.” Colin Farrell is a sensational portrayal of the hapless idiot Pádraic, with the look and undying loyalty of a dog who can’t understand why he was cast out.
Even as a viewer you don’t quite understand, that force of nature that has come over the taciturn Colm, a stoic rock of a man who could be played by none other than Brendan Gleeson. Was he really just looking for self-realization or stillness? Anyone who thinks that what happens when the two stubborn and proud friends can only continue with a gradual healing is wrong. «The Banshees of Inisherin» celebrates the destruction, almost the dismemberment of a male friendship with black humor and absurdity.
Director and writer McDonagh is a specialist in escalating fragile relationships. In his latest film “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, two hostile forces tore everything else around them into a vortex.
The story of a grieving mother who takes action against the police chief with a poster campaign won two Oscars from seven nominations in 2017. But even more, “The Banshees of Inisherin” continues the spirit of the film that made the Irishman a cult director in some circles in 2008: “In Bruges” (known in German under its more original title “Bruges see … and dood ?”).
At the time, Farrell and Gleeson were hiding like assassins in the beautiful Belgian city, united only by countless pints of beer. Torture for the youth, but a welcome opportunity for historical sightseeing for the elderly.
One should have killed the other. But the friendship, however shaky, was ultimately more important. Why we become enemies is a question that often cannot be answered in hindsight. The two men in The Banshees of Inisherin are faced with a much more mundane, but more horrifying realization: they don’t even know why they were friends.
The Banshees of Inisherin is now in cinemas.
Source: Blick
I am Dawid Malan, a news reporter for 24 Instant News. I specialize in celebrity and entertainment news, writing stories that capture the attention of readers from all walks of life. My work has been featured in some of the world’s leading publications and I am passionate about delivering quality content to my readers.
