BANSHEES OF INISHERIN - BFI London Film Festival 2022 - Day 9

There is much to admire in Martin McDonagh's THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN, but I left the screening feeling that the movie was less than the sum of its parts. I think what McDonagh is trying to do is to show us the consequences of a mental health crisis on a friendship, and to make an allegory of seemingly pointless violence to the Irish Civil War and consequent Troubles. But while beautifully shot, acted, scored and designed - and full of real belly-laughs and poignant moments - this film felt rather too casual and clumsy in its use of allegory. Indeed, at a pivotal moment of violence, I felt it had jumped the shark. I was brought out of the film and its project, and only the heart-breaking performance from Barry Keoghan brought me back in.

The film starts in media res, with Padraic (Colin Farrell) going to call for his best friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson) for their daily pint, and being rejected with seemingly no explanation. The rest of the film covers the consequences of Colm's decision to unilaterally withdraw from what he describes as Padraic's dullness to focus on his music. But we know the music isn't the point because of what he then does to himself when Padraic fights for his love. In fact, the truth of the matter is hinted at in the confessional box at Church. Colm is in despair.

Maybe despair is the appropriate response to living on a windswept, bleak, gossipy island off the coast of Ireland in the midst of a civil war. But Colm's targeting of the warm-hearted Padraic seems cruel and unnecessary. This is probably McDonagh's point. Only Kerry Condon's literate and no-nonsense sister cuts through both men's escalatingly maddening conflict. Her honesty is a characteristic she shares with Padraic, who has no trouble in pointing out what's happening with the village idiot Dominic (Keoghan) who is actually the most sensitive and observant and heart-breaking character in the whole piece.

The movie is set on Mykonos, which brilliantly doubles for Western Ireland, and is shot beautifully by Ben Davis. Carter Burwell's score adds to the air of melancholy. The performances are uniformally strong with Keoghan and Condon arguably better than the already brilliant lead actors. I just feel that when we get to "that" moment, the movie never recovers, and the vast themes it raises are never properly interrogated. As with EMPIRE OF LIGHT, I felt that the theme of mental health was done a disservice, particularly in the character of Dominic.

In fact, I felt that a lot of the accusations thrown at Aronofsky's THE WHALE are better thrown against this film: that it's too stagey, too claustrophobic; too exploitative of physical extremity; picks up issues of mental health too lightly; is a weak film containing great performances. I felt THE WHALE was a perfect, deeply affecting whole, whereas this was to be admired but also frustrated by.

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN is rated R and has a running time of 109 minutes. The film played Venice and Toronto 2022 and is playing the BFI London Film Festival. It will be released in the UK and USA on October 21st.

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI - BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Closing Night Gala

With THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, writer-director Martin McDonagh (IN BRUGES) has created a genuinely surprising, slow-paced character drama that's also scattered with his trademark dark, filthy humour. But don't be fooled by the trailer that's basically a "best of" some of the funniest bits. This is a much slower, darker and in some senses profound drama that he's created before, and to my mind, all the better for it. 

The starting point of the film is that Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand - FARGO) is angry the local police have not found the man that brutally raped and murdered her daughter Angela. In a fit of frustration and pique, she hires three old billboards outside of the town on a little-used road and puts up a provocative sign asking for justice from police Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson - WOTPOTA). This sets of a series of events that seem to spiral out of control in a tat for tat revenge plot.  It pits Mildred against Willoughby and his stupid racist deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell - MOON) and Dixon against the poor schmuck who sold Mildred the billboard space (Caleb Landry Jones - TWIN PEAKS) and the town against Mildred.  As her violent ex-husband's hapless young girlfriend points out, violence begets violence. And that's the point when Mildred (and we) realise that the point of the film isn't to find out who did it, and to apportion blame, but to get to a point where we can just let it go.

I loved this film for three reasons. First, as with all McDonagh films, there's a strand of nasty humour that I absolutely adore. Second, McDormand's performance is genuinely award-worthy - not simply for the angry swearing but for the profound pain that underlies it, and invokes our sympathy even as she does selfish, near-unhinged things. Third, I am so rarely surprised by cinema, but this movie totally surprised me three times.  It took characters and events in directions I couldn't have predicted but which made sense and surprised me. I have real respect for authors who can take a character that I initially hate and turn my opinion around and that's what happened here - and it was utterly satisfying. 

So a great film - if deeper and darker and more considered in its pacing than McDonagh's previous work. This may disappoint some fans but I hope they appreciate it for the layered and disturbing but ultimately hopeful work that it is. 

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated R. The movie played Venice, London and Toronto 2017. It opens in the USA on November 10th; in Australia and New Zealand on January 1st; in Italy, Spain and the UK on January 12th; in Argentina, Germany and Singapore on January 25th; in Philippines on February 14th; and in France on February 28th. 

London Film Fest 2011 Day 15 - THIS MUST BE THE PLACE

Rabartu Smitu, Rabartu Smitu, 

tashiwa ga suki Rabartu Smitu

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE is a visually inventive but often frustratingly slow-paced film that bravely tries to juxtapose whimsical comedy and serious history with problematic results. 

Sean Penn plays an ageing, bored and depressed former goth rock-star called Cheyenne. His high-pitched voice and Robert Smith clothes mark him as a man-child, trapped in his adolescence, but anchored by the love of his down-to-earth wife, Jane (Frances McDormand) and the friendship of emotionally scarred fan-girl, Mary. The death of his father forces Cheyenne back to America. Almost on a whim, he sets off on a meandering road-trip, searching for the Nazi that had tormented his father. But despite a very moving late scene of confession and humiliation, this is not really a revenge movie at all, but rather a character drama about an estranged son breaking beyond that emotional vacuum in order to become a man.

The casting is strong - with Sean Penn and Frances McDormand complemented by strong cameos from Harry Dean Stanton, Judd Hirsch (as a Simon Wiesenthal cipher) and Heinz Lieven as the Nazi. And the script, by Umberto Contarello, contains many belly-laughs, and superlative dramatic set-pieces. But as with all Paolo Sorrentino movies, the true stars are Luca Bigazzi's fluid, deliberate, elegant camera-work and the flamboyant use of the musical score, this time, by the legendary David Byrne. Technically, this film is flawless and imaginative. 

But it didn't grab me, fascinate me, in the same way as Sorrentino's previous films - IL DIVO and THE FAMILY FRIEND. This is partly because the character of Cheyenne is, however sympathetic, also rather slow and whimsical, and after a while this started to grate. It's partly because the road-trip in the second half is so random and slow. I know that this is the point - that is should have the kind of magic and wonder of THE STRAIGHT STORY - but I did become very impatient with it. And finally, I guess I just felt too uncomfortable with the deliberate juxtaposition of the Holocaust with the character of Cheyenne - the man least likely to come to mind as a Nazi hunter. Something about the man using the hunt for the Nazi as a kind of distraction from a life of satiety, and then as a kind of agent toward self-knowledge, felt weird and exploitative. I know this was a deliberate provocation from Sorrentino - but for me it just didn't work. 

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE played Cannes 2011 where it won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. It opened earlier this year in France and is currently on release in Italy. It opens in Germany on November 10th, in Sweden on November 18th, in the US in December, in Australia on December 26th, in Poland on February 3rd, in Spain in March and in the UK on March 9th.