War Is Absurd

The Banshees of Inisherin a film by Martin McDonagh.  With Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan.  Streaming on HBO Max.  ****

I can’t remember ever saying this before, but I enjoyed thinking about this movie more than actually watching it.  The watching was sometimes excruciating, especially because my wife kept jumping up and leaving the room.

The action takes place in 1923, when the Irish Civil War was raging.  In hearing distance of the shooting, though not actually involved in the fighting, is the island of Inisherin, an incredibly beautiful spot which seems to be a kind of paradise, since people seem to work but not terribly hard: it’s common to head off to the pub for a pint at 2:00 PM.  Two people who often do that are a pair of friends named Padraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson), an odd couple if there ever was one.  Colm seems much older and lives alone.  Padraic lives with his sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon); in fact, not only does she cook and do the washing for him, but they sleep in the same small room in twin beds.

There’s no mention of how all this came about.  Did Padraic and Colm’s parents once live in this house with them?  I’m not sure where they would have slept.  Have either of these middle-aged people ever wanted to leave home and get married?  Has Colm ever been married, or wanted to be?

Now that we’re on the subject, is anyone on this island married?  I didn’t see any two people whom I would call a couple.  Has anyone on this island ever gotten laid, or wanted to?  I call it paradise, but the sexual act seems largely absent from the place, except for one old guy who’s fond of wanking with all his clothes off (he turns out to be the town policeman) and abusing his adult son.

In some ways, the place seems more like an assisted living facility than a vibrant community.  But the town does gather at the pub, whether to down that 2:00 PM pint, or to listen to music and sing along (and occasionally punch some guy out).  Everyone attends the Catholic church, and sexual repression seems the order of the day.  Even the priest is an angry, bitter, profane man.

The major plot driver, which occurs at the beginning of the movie and affects the whole community, is when Colm suddenly doesn’t want to go to the pub for that pint anymore.  He doesn’t like Padraic.  He’s calling their friendship off.

At first this change of heart seems mysterious, but over time, Colm explains himself.  He’s a musician, a composer of fiddle music, and as he ages he’s begun to feel a bit of despair.  (“How’s the despair?” the priest asks at confession.  Not that he really cares).  He wants to do something more important than the daily round of sitting in the pub listening to Padraic describe the bowel habits of his miniature donkey (which is nevertheless a beautiful animal).  He finds his friend dull.  He’s apparently found him dull all along but has reached a breaking point.  He wants to devote his life to silence, contemplation, and fiddle music.  He doesn’t want to talk to this dullard anymore.

By the time Colm comes out with all this, we’ve realized that, though Padraic is a sweet human being, he actually is rather dull, or perhaps mentally limited.  He should understand Colm’s feelings, because his only other apparent choice for a friend is someone even more limited than he, the young man named Dominic (Barry Keoghan) who is the object of his father’s sexual abuse.  But we can also understand the hopelessness that both Padraic and Dominic must feel.  There’s no Internet, no television, apparently not even any radios on this place (Colm does have a phonograph, and a few records).  If you don’t have a friend to go to the pub with, you’ve got nothing.  You just stare out at the sea.

On the other hand, even if you’re feeling the late-in-life despair that Colm apparently feels, it’s mean to suddenly tell your best friend he’s dull and that you don’t want to see him anymore.  In fact (I was kidding about this place being paradise; the only paradisial thing about it is the apparently unlimited supply of Guiness, which nobody seems to pay for), there’s a meanness to this whole place.  The cop is mean, the priest is mean, the woman at the post office is mean, and nosy.  This place is meanness personified.  It reminds me of an Irish bar I once entered in Cambridge, then exited immediately.  That place had bar fight written all over it.

One can’t help thinking that this sudden split, and eruption of anger, between two Irishmen somehow reflects the war that is raging on the mainland, or at least comments on it.  Otherwise, why set the story in that particular year?  Padraic is hurt by what his friend has told him, isn’t able to accept the split, and the way that Colm decides to drive his point home—by threatening to do something if Padraic keeps coming around—is absurd.  He says he wants more time to do the thing he loves.  But the thing he’s proposing will prevent him from doing it.  The means and ends are in conflict, as is often true, but never have they been in conflict in a more bizarre way.  I can’t reveal what I mean because it would be a spoiler.  But it is what makes the movie excruciating to watch, and had my wife leaving the room.

I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  The acting is great—Farrell and Gleeson are among my favorite actors—as is the direction, and the script (though someone needs to fill me in: do the Irish say fecking because they think it’s not really cursing, or is that just the way they pronounce the word.  And how come they never actually feck?  Except for Edna O’Brien).  The setting is beautiful.  In many ways, I’d like to see the movie again.  But I won’t.  I can’t take the pain.