Banshees of Inisherin - A Review

One of the measures of good art (film, literature, painting, etc) is that it stays with you and makes you think, even if you didn’t like it all that much.  That is happening for me right now with the film The Banshees of Inisherin, which my wife and I watched last night.

She and I have embarked on our sort-of-annual quest to watch all the Academy Award Best Picture nominees.  Of the 10 films, we had seen one together  (Everything Everywhere) and I have also seen Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water.  Last night when we finished Banshees, I pretty much hated the film.  I rated it a 3 out of 10 on IMDB and was gently ranting to my family members about the film and how pointless and stupid it was.  I believe I did say something of “that’s 2 hours of my life I’m never getting back.”

Well, something stirred with the film for me overnight apparently because I keep thinking about the film.  I still can’t say that I liked the film but I can say that it has stayed with me and I’m starting to see something deeper in the film that I didn’t experience last night.  I was watching it from a literal perspective and if that’s the only way one takes it in, it is a pretty dark, depressing, and (pointless?) film.  But this conflict between these two former friends is set against the backdrop of the Irish Civil War in the 1920s and therein lies the deeper message.

What I woke up to this morning was how the film is a parable about that conflict.  In the conflict between friends in the film, it starts out of nowhere and proceeds to get uglier and uglier.  Innocents are hurt and die in their conflict while unreasonable, crazy actions are taken by both.  Others try to step in to stop but nothing changes even as the film ends their conflict remains.  All the while they are seeing and hearing the explosions and gunshots of the military conflict occurring across the bay from their small island.

As I have been going over this film throughout the day today, I keep hearing one of the verses from U2’s song Peace on Earth

Where I grew up
There weren't many trees
Where there was we'd tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you

As an Irish band, they know this history and how the conflicts from back then were still present as they were growing up and even as the conflicts around Northern Ireland (“The Troubles”) were raging.  And they see how the cycle of violence continues as one becomes the monster that they are trying to avoid becoming.

How many of the conflicts we are fighting today  are ones we are fighting just because we’ve “always” been fighting them?  Do we know what we’re fighting for or fighting against?  Are we simply perpetuating the cycles of violence that never stop?  At what point do we put something down to break that cycle?   So I still didn’t enjoy the film, but maybe I wasn’t supposed to?  (The photo is one that will make sense if/when you see the film).