Disclaimer: post aimed at students who are learning English and wish to improve their vocabulary. This is not a movie blog or anything of the like.
LEVEL: C1
(Words or idioms that you might not know are highlighted in bold).
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Hello!
I hope you had a nice kick-off to 2023. On my first day of 2023, I spent my time eating lots of sweets and being lazy watching movies with my partner. It was a bank holiday here in the UK, so we thought we might as well go the full monty before the madness starts all over again.
Talking about starters, I will begin by saying I'm NOT a movie buff. I'm FAR from being a movie buff. I'm just a layperson that suddenly had the urge to write about a specific movie....so if you are a movie expert reading this post, please cut me some slack.
I find most mainstream films boring and cliché, but I also think most alternative films are too weird to like. I hate American films because I think all of them postulate this idea that the world revolves around the United States and that we have to buy into this "love and meritocracy conquer all" baloney, HOWEVER.... and this is a BIG however, when I do like a film, I like it a LOT... it's like a love-hate marmite type of thing.
Yesterday I watched The Banshees of Inisherin, starring Colin Farell and Brendan Gleeson. If you watched In Bruges, you know both actors have amazing chemistry together. Now, multiply this by 2 when the film has as backdrop the idyllic views of Emerald Island (Ireland).... đ it's the perfect match!
(before you continue... SOME SPOILERS AHEAD!)
In the film, Colm Doherty (Gleeson) and PĂĄdraic SĂșilleabhĂĄin (Farell) are long-life friends. One day, though, Colm suddenly decides he no longer wants to be friends with PĂĄdraic. PĂĄdraic is clueless as to why Colm made this decision and keeps pestering and challenging Colm to tell him.
In one of the scenes, Colm goes:
Crikey, if that didn't hit you in the face, I don't know what will.
PĂĄdraic is devastated (and rightly so) and in one of the many confrontations with his former friend, he goes:
(paraphrasing...)
What about niceness? What if my legacy is to be nice? To be a nice person? My father was nice, and my mother was nice. My sister is nice... and I love her for it. I'm nice, what is the problem with that?
To which Colm replies:
As a viewer, you can't help but feel sorry for PĂĄdraic. I just wanted to go inside the tv, hug him and buy him a pint.
On the other hand, I felt compelled to agree with Colm to a certain extent. Niceness, as he said in the film, doesn't last or do much, does it? God, how many times in my life have I been nice to potential students online, answering English questions I'm not paid to provide, only to find out a few months later that these same students paid a 3K course to have RECORDED lessons with another teacher?
(Good lord, that might have been the most rubbish analogy ever, but hey ho, it's my blog so I'm allowed to digress by throwing shade at people).
Regardless if you agree with Colm or not, the fact is that his admiration for PĂĄdraic was over. I guess one could think 'Why drag this relationship if I don't see anything fruitful coming from it?'
The lengths he was able to go to prove his point was too much for me, though. Colm warns PĂĄdraic that every time PadrĂĄic bothers him, he will cut his OWN fingers and throw them at PĂĄdraic's door (I mean, WHAAAAT?). An important piece of information here: Colm is a songwriter and a fiddle player, which means that if he cut his own fingers, he wouldn't be able to play anymore.
Well, as you might have already guessed, it's downhill from there, my friend. The two friends end up holding forever grudges against one another.
What could be potentially a very boring movie becomes a masterpiece. The acting of Kerry Condon playing the feisty SiobhĂĄn SĂșilleabhĂĄin (PĂĄdraic's sister) and the cutie Barry Kheogan playing the weirdo but extremely likeable Dominic Kearney, PĂĄdraic's friend, add a brilliant kick to the mix.
The film clearly criticises two big institutions: the Church (you will understand when you see it) and the Police (Dominic's father is a drunken copper who beats the sh*t out of Dominic for no reason... ).
The term Banshees was also an enigma for me and I had to look it up. Apparently, the term comes from Irish folklore to designate a feminine spiritual entity that appears out of nowhere to announce a person's imminent death.
Even though it's not explicitly mentioned, the Banshee seems to be portrayed by Mrs McCormick, an old lady dressed in black and red that keeps portending some sinister events: "There will be two deaths on the island...."
I lived in the west of Ireland for less than a year in 2017, but one thing I couldn't help but notice is that even though most Irish in the west are Catholic, they are very superstitious, so when I reckon it was a nice touch from the director to bring that part of the Irish culture into play.
Last but not least, the movie seems to be an allegory of the Irish Civil War that happened in 1922-1923. At some point throughout the movie, PĂĄdraic says something along the lines of "I miss when our problems were killing the English, now we're killing our own". There are several references to the war, which you should pay attention to, should you watch the movie.
But the most amazing bit was the ending, which to me was SO POWERFUL. The Banshee stands there, watching the two men, who have spent the entire movie hurting one another. In my view, this scene was a metaphor for death (the Irish Civil War had over 2,000 casualties) and, more importantly, for a country that was bound to be divided forever.
If you do watch it, let me know what you make of it! :)
@All rights reserved - 2023.