An intensely sad but darkly funny contemplation of what the point of all this is, the various ways we can try to feel satisfied in life, and how we should treat one another. It was deeply moving. I’d highly recommend it, even if I wouldn’t want to watch it again any time soon.
I didn’t actually intend to watch this film. I had enjoyed a promotional clip I saw of it online (what turned out to be a scene only a few minutes in to the movie), and I knew I’d probably like the duo of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson given their chemistry in In Bruges (also written and directed by Martin McDonagh). But looking at the plot summary, and hearing a bit about it online, I had surmised that it’s setting in Ireland and its entanglement with the Irish Civil War, probably meant that it wasn’t a movie I’d “get,” only having a cursory understanding of that time and its broader implications in Irish history. I also figured that the thick accents would be hard to understand for me without subtitles.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t say no to an invitation to see the movie with a friend, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that none of my fears came true. I followed most of the dialogue, and didn’t feel like I missed anything too important. And, thankfully, there is so much there in the film even aside from the parallels to Irish history, that I feel I got more than enough out of it. If you found yourself thinking similarly, I wouldn’t worry about it.
In fact, the movie is quite universal. Where some films focus on topics that are engrossing, even if not something I can directly relate to, The Banshees of Inisherin engrosses you in topics almost mundane. While I certainly can’t relate to the social milieu that comes with living on a sparsely populated Irish island in 1923, I and probably most of us can absolutely relate to feeling unsatisfied with life’s tedium, wondering if what we’re doing matters and what that means, frustratingly looking for what actually makes us happy, and feeling insecure about our status and worth as a person.
It is a beautiful film that left me with intense emotions. Feeling the need to debrief, my friend and I sat afterwards in the small theater’s café until close. We had a wide-reaching discussion of the film’s implications, both within the story as well as in our own lives. I can only hope it would inspire a similar reflection for you, however that looks. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?
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