Thursday, August 10, 2023

Banshees seen

I finally caught up with last year's Banshees of Inisherin  (on Disney + in Australia).

Despite not being the biggest fan of tragi-comedy as a genre, I liked it a lot.

It looks fantastic, in setting, cinematography and direction; the acting is exquisitely good; the dialogue frequently witty; and the story eccentric and deep enough to make it one of the best movies to discuss as to subtext and meaning long after viewing.  (The Reddit threads about it are particularly good for this.) 

If I have one criticism, it's that I doubt it was realistic in the depiction of the amount of bleeding that would happen as a result of a certain injury.   (In that it showed way too little bleeding.)   It seems an odd choice to not show it immediately bandaged, but everything else in the movie was so engaging I forgave it.    

4 comments:

Not Trampis said...

It was one of the WORST movies' I have ever seen.
The storyline never made sense

Steve said...

Homer, lots of people on Reddit have theories as to how to make sense of it all, and I enjoyed the analysis.

For one thing, it can be read as a very clear allegory/metaphor for the civil war going on over on the mainland. (But curiously, the writer/director denied that it was meant as such, apparently.)

Someone else suggested that Colm's motivation in ending the friendship was that he had decided to kill himself, and that ending the friendship first was intended to make that less hurtful to Padriac. That seems plausible to me...


Not Trampis said...

yeah a man decides his former best mate is boring and wants nothing to do with him.

to show him he is serious he cuts of his fingers over time.

As I saidit never made sense and easily one of the worst movies i have ever seen

Steve said...

Well, it's a bit like real life: people sometimes do crazy things, and the rest of us are left to work out why they were thinking that way. Some movies make it clear what the motivation was, and the full history of the character. Others leave it ambiguous, dropping possible hints, and leave it to the audience to think about.

I mean - look at Colm. There is no mention of if he ever was in love with anyone, and if not, why not. His house is full of stuff indicating an interest in arts and performance - a puppet is hanging by the neck, masks, etc. His sudden urge to write a song that will outlive him indicates some sort of late life crisis and regret.

I would not say that I would like every movie to have unexplained motivations, but I can live with it every now and then...