The Banshees of Inisherin…Some Thoughts

A film that leaves you better informed and thinking…

I am lucky enough to have spent some time in the West of Ireland. Connemara, Westport, Achill and places in between. Margaret, my wife, introduced me to a beach that I couldn’t show you, as it is hidden from the tourism tracks. I ask her to take me every time we are there and not once has there ever been another soul on the sand.

The beauty of the West is a combination of land and sea, but most of all the light and how it highlights and shadows the landscape. With the sun setting over the Atlantic, the light shifts create new vistas as you stand and watch. Be careful when you are driving not to run over a painter or two, brought there by the wonder of the West.

The Banshees of Inisherin is acted out on an island that is not and is real at the same time. Keem Beach on Achill plays a big role, as does Aran. Real islands that hold the truth of the film. Isolation.

The story is of two old friends falling out. We only know how close they were by the impact of the breakup. Friends who met every day at the same time, went to the same pub, populated by the same men, having the same conversations. And now one is not speaking to the other.

Why? Because he is bored. His life is going nowhere and that is personified in his closest friend, portrayed with a talent that I didn’t think Colin Farrell possessed, who is bewildered, looking at himself for the cause, and finding nothing.

The time is set by the mention of the Irish Civil War, otherwise it could have been any of a hundred years and more. The Civil War that tore Ireland apart as much as the partition of the North. It is happening on the mainland, and there is not much impact apart from hearing the sound of artillery and rifles.

And then the allegory comes alive. Brendan Gleason wants nothing to do with his old friend, he wants no chat. But Padraic (Farrell) wants his friend back and is unable to leave it. Who else is there to be friends with? He can sit and chat with the local lad Dominic, a wonderful performance by Barry Keoghan, who is challenged intellectually, but he is no replacement.

Padraic’s sister, Siobhan (Kerry Condon), is looking elsewhere, her books no longer an escape hatch. She tries to glue her brother and Colm (Gleason) back together, with no success.

The political power on the island is held by the priest and the police, revealed in spades when they are challenged. The undercurrent of sexual abuse and violence are there every day.

As we move through the film, the brutality of Ireland is revealed. Colm will enforce his new decision with a violence that will hurt both him and Padraic. The beauty of the scenery initially admired, becomes a trap, with no escape. The beauty of the land is only appreciated by those that don’t become accustomed to seeing it every day. No one has any reason to go to Inisherin, only to leave it. There is no one new, they all know everything about everyone, through the gossip channel of the local shopkeeper, Mrs McCormick.

And then a few musical students arrive and Colm is taken with them and then with him and his violin. Padraic is now alone, more than ever.

What is male friendship? Is it love? What brings men or women to lifelong relationships, often from the first days of school identifying a fellowship that created bonding that is core to life, until it isn’t. And then they are bereft, left to think about the good times and ask why a strong relationship proved to be so fragile.

The Civil War resonates as an excitement, something going on, over there on the mainland, but the reality is that families and friends were ripped apart by that conflict, some of the fallouts lasting for generations. The de Valera and Collins friendship and camaraderie destroyed by one choosing betrayal. On Innisherin they manage to create their own divisions, daily.

The film is written like a J M Synge or Frank O’Connor short story, putting real people ahead of the plot. The acting of every member of the cast is faultless. The timing of the dialogue is almost musical, with each character taking the time to speak, in the unhurried world of the West. The incidentals are like a well-painted picture of village life, the local people in a place that is so small to be almost unimaginable to the modern movie viewer. This Ireland continued for another fifty years, without running water in many homes, poverty, farms that provided a scraped living, and people that would have been comfortable with those from a hundred years before.

Reading the reviews in IMDB, it seems to me that you need to be and understand being Irish to get the full impact of the film. It is not a comedy but reflects the comic nature of the Irish character, the craic. It is a drama, written to tell a story that is bedded in the national state of mind. The drink, the violence, and the divisions are all too real, to this day.

Martin McDonagh has creates a masterpiece, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand this island better.