It’s 1923. The setting, well-suited to a story about disconnection, is a fictional island, Inisherin, based on Inishmore and Achill, off Ireland’s West Coast. As civil war rages on the distant mainland, the war between Pádraic and Colm rages on Inisherin, affecting everyone.
There’s a brilliantly spare script by the film’s director, Martin McDonagh, who also directed Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell in In Bruges in 2008.
There’s plenty of pathos. Tissues may be needed for scenes like the one where Colm, despite having alienated Pádraic, helps him home, tenderly, wordlessly, after drunk Pádraic has been beaten up by the local policeman for spilling home truths about him in the pub. But it’s not all sweetness after that apparently bonding incident - not at all. “Some things there’s no moving on from,” Pádraic says. “And I think that’s a good thing.”
Pádraic’s sister Siobhán (Kerry Condon) and troubled young islander Dominic, in a remarkably poignant performance by Barry Keoghan, try to convince Pádraic to stay away from Colm, but Pádraic simply cannot. Everything in Pádraic’s life has always been the same: Colm is his friend, he milks two cows for income, he goes to church and he lives with his precious donkey Jenny and his sister Siobhán. But cracks are appearing. It’s not only Colm who’s had it. Chatting with weird soothsayer Mrs McCormick (Sheila Flitton) seems to lift Siobhán’s spirits, but isn’t enough for her. Her loneliness threatens to get the better of her.
Gloom descends when Mrs McCormick prophesies two deaths. She doesn’t wail like a banshee about them, but when Pádraic decides that his niceness has caused “the dull”, and that from now on, he won’t be nice, her prophesies start to materialise.
Banshees is a work of art. Cinematography by Ben Davis features outstanding lighting which evokes Rembrandt. Carter Burwell wrote the wonderful score. Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh’s costuming is gorgeously authentic; an elderly man knitted the jumpers. But despite its beauty, Banshees is confronting, showing an Ireland that was so poor, you’d definitely emigrate if you could. Stuck there, Colm and Pádraic try to survive in their different, very human, ways. Doom and gloom, yes, but enough laugh-out-loud humour to make Banshees a great film. Unforgettable characters and a deeply moving story.
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