The Banshees of Inisherin: Colin Farrell at his peak (review)
One of the most beautiful films of 2022 will be broadcast this evening on Canal +.
On an Irish island, in 1923, two former friends become locked in an absurd quarrel. Martin McDonagh reforms the duo Good kisses from BrugesColin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, and creates a very dark, very funny fable. First recommend it to you.
The Banshees of Inisherin. Another title to lie outside for Martin McDonagh, after Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (3 Billboards: the panels of revenge in French). Inisherin is a (fictional) island off the west coast of Ireland, spared from the civil war which was tearing the country apart – the action of the film takes place in 1923. And a banshee, according to Wikipedia, is “a supernatural female creature from Irish Celtic mythology, believed to be a sorceress or messenger from the other world”. In the movie, “The Banshees of Inisherin” is the name of the musical piece for violins composed by Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson), a gruff fellow with a passion for music. “But there are no banshees in Inisherin!” “, wonders the debonair Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell). No problem, replies Colm, what matters is the way it sounds, this pretty alliteration…
And then, first of all, the two men shouldn’t be having this discussion: Colm has decided not to talk to his old friend Pádraic anymore. Like that, all at once, overnight. The film opens with this clap of thunder, which puts an end to an immemorial friendly routine. Every day at 2 p.m., normally, Pádraic comes to knock on Colm’s door so that they can go together and drink a few pints of beer at the local tavern. They’ve been doing this for God knows when. But this time, the second explains to the first that he wants to end their friendship, going so far as to ask him to never speak to him again. Good Pádraic is distraught. The film will examine the consequences, in the heart of the brave man, then within the entire small island community, of this incomprehensible and brutal decision.
For his first feature film set in Ireland, playwright-turned-director Martin McDonagh, born in London to Irish parents, chooses the tone of the absurd fable, a little Beckett, a little Pinter. From a very thin argument, which assumes its artificiality, he develops a comical, cruel reflection on the human condition and existential despair.
Going in circles on this magnificent Irish land beaten by the winds, the characters in the film wonder about the meaning to give to their lives: should we, like Pádraic, be satisfied with the comforting succession of days that are all similar? Or like Colm hope for better, a form of transcendence – even if it means provoking it through violence? In the distance, the muffled echoes of the civil war which is tearing the country apart (and which no one on the island seems to understand) underlines the metaphorical dimension of the estrangement between the two ex-friends.
One woman, Siobhan, Pádraic’s sister (fantastic Kerry Condon), knows that there are other horizons to discover, something other than these aimless days and drunken nights. All the other characters, archetypes of an eternal Irish pastoral (cop, priest, village idiot, etc.), seem conversely condemned to banging against the walls of this open-air prison.
Dark, quite desperate, but also very funny, the film owes a lot to its actors, all very subtle. Gleeson embodies his character as a taciturn music lover with great depth, while Colin Farrell undoubtedly finds here the best role of his career, brilliantly going, with a quiver of his famous eyebrows, from good nature to daze, then to absolute despair. . They both take obvious pleasure in saying McDonagh’s dialogue, savoring it like one would sip a thick dark beer. Dialogues that are very dialogue-like – but it’s done on purpose. Dialogues that “sound” superbly. Like the title of this film, bizarre and poetic, so pleasant to pronounce.
Trailer :
