The Banshees of Inisherin

Amongst the Celebrations ™ wrappers, Christmas high expectation/low delivery, there are gems of films to discover over the new year. Mind you, this Irish caper suits family viewing in the same manner that a Marmite soup might be received by the wider family millenials.

Anyone who has visited Ireland will know it’s not for everyone, much like Albion and New York, it strikes me as being a state of mind as much as a place; perhaps better visited in your mind than the reality. This maybe the most controversial thing I’ve ever said.

If The Banshees of Inisherin was sponsored by the Irish tourist board then the Director, Martin McDonagh, may have to remain in hiding for the foreseeable future. 

I was left to watch the film alone after being told ‘I’m not in the mood for this’. Such dismay at its slumbering pace suggested there was never going to be an ideal mood for it, so a few days later I persevered on my own. In some ways it is as laborious as an Orthodox easter service, and anyone expecting the hard-nosed banter of In Bruges during which the same lead actors (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) locked horns over pomme-frites, waffles and hitman regret (also directed by Martin McDonagh) will potentially be disappointed. The nearest thing to a weapon in this film is a stick with a hook and some sheep shearers – the less said about them the better.  But, although this film may not be for everyone, if you allow yourself to fall into its arms it’s incredibly rewarding.    

It's the honest vulnerability to Colm (Farrell), who tries, yet is incapable of lying, that stays with you; he just wants a friend. Set in the early 1920s it’s the sublime story of a simple man making a case for his simplicity and the ultimate futility of life when faced with his friend Brendan wishing to establish the tiniest smudge of immortality via composing a tune for the fiddle which requires the termination of their friendship. Kerry Condon (no giggling at the back) Colm’s sister lies at the heart of this film, as she peers over her books at the petty squabbles and long-tailed grudges that have forgotten what originally aggrieved them serving as rural entertainment in the absence of Netflix and smart phones, and indeed cars, TVs, sandwich makers and gyms.  If you’re not spinning a yarn, you’re spinning yarn.

The film, particularly the drunken speech Colm gives in the pub, which he predictably forgets, lingers because it cuts so close to the bone. What are the chances of being remembered for how nice we were, or how noble, or how swift at catching a ball, or for our thoughtfulness when even published authors and composers lie neglected and forgotten in the straw at the bottom of the stack in charity shops and church community libraries?    

It all reminds me of a train trip across Ireland. Where the Dublin’s industrial and ill-planned mess fell away from the tracks, giving way to barns with trees growing through their missing roofs, where three sheep stood in a field big enough for 30,000. We passed yellow gorse and abandoned farms. I looked out where new-build housing estates shone beneath the darkening sky, as the train rattled on past the flattened black of peat bogs, lichen-covered Celtic crosses, a DPD depot and a hollow castle surrounded by a moat of grass and collapsing stone walls miles from anywhere. The train pulled into Athlone alongside chipped and faded Corgi cars in a station master’s window.

We moved off, past a tripod water tower lashed by rain, rotting tractors, and more peat; a country so fertile you could plant your thoughts and your dreams would grow true, as clothes lines cut down empty gardens towards swollen rivers which stretch and yawned alongside cows’ heads down at the grass, amongst the chess board of stone walls and fallow fields, lone trees and forgotten trailers. Newly planted firs line freshly pressed tarmac and the needless streetlights of a dual carriageway.

The obligatory caravan staked beside a pig pen, where lambs learning to stand sheltered in an overhanging hedge. A foal ran for fun between hay piles pinned down by old tractor tyres while the mother disapproved as she stands, dripping in the rain for the years to come. Empty car parks lined the coastal estuary, a reminder of the brutal inhumanity of lockdown; shops closed and offices empty. An RNLI memorial so garish that lifeboat crews might question why they bothered, before a child cycled past, hands free, hands stretched out into the air before disappearing through a bridge as the train rattled finally towards the buffers of Galway station.