The Banshees of Inisherin - 8.5/10
I just saw it last night and I think it was a great film. It looked beautiful, I loved the characters and the acting was outstanding. The story was really bleak, but there was a lot of good, dark humor in it as well which balanced out perfectly in my opinion. Ofcourse the story was full of metaphores and allegories. Some of which I did get, but I'm sure there are also a lot that I haven't . The thing that resonated the most with me was the plain simple fact of Colm telling Pádraic he doesn't want to be friends anymore. I experienced something similar a couple of years ago where my best friend just stopped talking to me from one day to the next. Never have been able to get another word out of him. To this day I have no idea why, or if it was because something I had done. The way the film captured the feeling of the loss of the friendship, to the self doubt about why and ultimately resentment was really well done. I'd be lying if I said it didn't bring back feelings to my own experience. It really hits home actually.
Banshees rides right on the edge of satire. McDonagh doesn't take it all the way there, but it comes very close.
Two shows that do a better and more extended job of discussing dysfunction and the pathology of loss and narcissism would be, IMHO, Ryan Murphy's Nip/Tuck and David Chase's The Sopranos.
An uncomfortable truth about most people ( not all but I'd say nearly all) is their interactions comes with motives and with a sharp eye on utility. What can this person do for me today or possibly do for me in the future. Status is a very powerful social weapon, sometimes it can be downright lethal.
For any number of reasons, when a person sees the utility wash away, their motive disappears and they disappear.
Nip/Tuck takes a pretty hard look at "What You Are" Versus "Who You Are" What You Are is about utility. It's how you look, it's your job or career, it's how much money you have, it's the neighborhood you live in, it's if you are college educated or not, etc, etc. Who You Are is your character, your sense of humor, your value system, how you treat people, what you do when adversity strikes, etc, etc. Very few people see the value in others based on "Who You Are"
The Sopranos is a cautionary tale, the only way out of a legacy of toxicity is to escape in full. In that way, what Colm does makes perfect sense and yet no sense at all ( his sister points out the open flaws in the behavior, it's an island, it's a tiny town, where is he going to go?) This is why Kerry Condon has a mental breakdown and leaves Colin Farrell behind. She's more self aware than both of them and sees her only chance is to escape.
My answer to you is both more simple and more complex at the same time. When people leave your life, often they are just trying to save themselves. They are drowning in something and can't carry anything else as they reach up to find a lifeline. The people already in their life are not that lifeline. Right or wrong, once I looked at things in those terms, it processed much differently. And if it doesn't make sense, the truth is it probably makes absolutely no sense at all. Just like in Banshees ( There's a certain level of cognitive dissonance in someone who resents the tiny town on an island that they won't leave) , the actions aren't always measured and rational, often they are from a place of total desperation.
I've seen a lot of death in my life. So I process loss a bit differently. Not better or worse, just differently. When people have come in and out of my life, I accept the loss, both good and bad, just like how a book moves the story forward as you turn pages. I'm also OK with not having answers. Grief and loss are things you feel. Once I came to terms that I could not apply logic to feelings, it was much easier to let go.
The things that stick to you aren't the narratives that try to corner you and demand you comply to their viewpoints ( which is why woke and identity politics in film receives so much back lash) , it's the arcs that ask you to deeply think and consider your overall value system as a person. A good film incites within a person an uncomfortable conversation that they don't want to have with themselves but can't ignore any longer.
