The spirits of the island, the review | Nerd League

The banshees are legendary creatures belonging to the Irish folk tradition, to be more precise they are female spirits linked to specific families (or to communities, why not?) Who they have the bad habit of making themselves known only when those who see them are close to death. Perhaps this is also why they are not really remembered as particularly benign figures. In North America the stories about them were brought by the Irish emigrants and became famous especially when related to the Civil War. Keep this last idea in mind, it is an interesting detail for those with these fetishes.

Why this introduction to a Gaelic myth? But why first of all the review of The spirits of the islandthe splendid new feature film by Martin McDonagh in competition a Venice79, it is correct to know that for the Irish-born director the film constitutes one reappropriation of his own cultural tradition, as well as the possibility of being able to reunite two old friends with whom he collaborated on his first feature film. Not to mention that he can finally conclude a trilogy that began in the theater more than 20 years ago.

What was the title of the last chapter? Ah, the same in the original of the film, The Banshees of Inisherin.

Now do you understand the reason for the introduction?

The two longtime buddies mentioned above are Colin Farrell And Brendan Gleesonprotagonists of In Bruges – The Consciousness of the Assassinnext to them the cast is made up of 100% Irish performers, led by the talented Kerry Condon And Barry Kheogan.

The spirits of the island arrives in Italian cinemas on February 23, 2023.

“Yesterday everything was fine”

Padraic (Farrell) is the kindest man on the island of Inisherin, everyone knows it and everyone knows that he is very proud of it. He will not be a skilled speaker nor a fine psychologist, but certainly no one can reproach him for not having a good and lovable soul.

His sister Siobhan (Condon) always says so too, with whom the man lives. After all, she is reserved for the role of being the smart one in the family and it’s not like Padraic envies her that much for that if you really want to know. He is okay with spending time working, strolling around the green coasts of his home, perhaps with his trusty Jenny, the domestic donkey, when he doesn’t come across Dominic (Keoghan), the village idiot, or go to Jonjo’s pub. .

Besides the sister in his heart there is only room for one other person.

Now, try to think about how a man as affable as him, who even takes pride in it, might react in the face of being suddenly rejected and thrown out by someone. Bad at least, right? What if he were to be the only other person he cares about in this world?

This is exactly what happens to Padraic, who, in an early afternoon, in the usual local, over a pint, is badly turned away by Colm (Gleeson), his best friend, his brotherly friend. He is a skilled speaker, a fine thinker, an excellent composer as well as a violinist. The excuse is that he finds it boring, he’s got tired of him now and he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore.

What they both ignore, however, is that even the breakdown of a relationship binds you, perhaps even more than when you are consciously close and that pain can lead to doing things far beyond the imaginable.

Black comedy with green hues

Back from the Oscar winnings with Three posters in Ebbing, MissouriMcDonagh decides to look back, trying to merge, through his writing, a black, caustic and hyperbolic comedy with a story that can still be said to belong to the Irish tradition.

However, from the film with McDormand, the London author brings several things with him.

The first and most important is that everything revolves around words.

Any luck or misfortune passes through them, any act of love or violence, any feeling, insecurity and evolution. In addition this time there is a direction that “recovers” an important attachment to the places where the story takes place, managing to give the viewer that mixed sense of beauty and serenity, but also of mysterywhich is typical of Irish landscapes.

Here too the idea of ​​the microcosm as a metaphor for the world returns, this time further narrowing the field to isolate it in the relationship of the two protagonists, who at the moment of the sudden break find themselves, for opposite reasons, trapped in a vicious circle that leads them to distort themselves in an escalation that is both destructive and self. Irremediably separated by two affinities I would dare to say spiritual, practically opposite.

The elaboration of a mourning lived in opposition, so powerful as to generate another type of relationship. The strength of ambivalence I believe.

The lives of the islanders take shape around them, some more or less involved in the alteration of what appears to be the fundamental point of equilibrium of the community. There are those who understand the absurdity of the conflict, enduring patiently as long as they can, those who risk becoming a victim and those who could even predict the outcome, maybe they won’t be as beautiful as traditional spirits, but when has McDonagh never had fun at overturning and deconstructing traditional figures.

As he did also in the power relations within the quarrelsome couple, having fun playing with the grotesque and humiliating the very concept of the game to be the alpha male, obviously by the hand of another perfectly written female character.

The proof of the cast is magnificent.

Colin Farrell comes out very well, despite some clooneyata he accuses from time to time, while Gleeson, a disciple of vanity, is hateful and lovable at the same time, fickle and treacherous as the sea, some would say. However, the chemistry between them has never been in question.

It continues to surprise Barry Keoghan instead, who returns to work with Farrell, showing himself perfectly capable of duet without disfiguring, and it is instead a beautiful revelation Kerry Condon, in a complex and very important role in the economy of the film.

At war for love

McDonagh makes a film that is intelligent, delicate, as ironic and funny as it is suddenly dramatic and touching, as he and a few others know how to do now in the more commercial and cartel cinema circuit.

It recovers a lot of the theatrical step, managing to blend very well a more mainstream narrative with a more culturally exclusive one, such as that linked to Irish folklore.

A further experimentation for an author who has made his fortunes with the ability to change the register of his films and to always be able to speak clearly and directly to his audience, never giving up his hilarious, cynical hyperbole.

The spirits of the island is set in a very small patch of green land so close to Ireland that the inhabitants can see and hear the gunshots of a fratricidal war in which the attackers and the attacked become further confused. Echo of the equally bloody conflict between the two souls of former friends, opposite but symbiotic. Linked to a destiny that will never allow any of them to leave, closed in a mutual love that cannot bear to get out of that very small strip of land. It is green.

The spirits of the island arrives in Italian cinemas on February 23, 2023

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