[Spoiler alert: Considerable plot reveal]
I want to recommend to you a movie that I have recently watched. It was recommended to me by a Turkish friend who I find to have impeccable movie taste. The movie is called The Banshees of Inisherin, is set in Ireland in the 1920s and stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.
Since its release last year, the movie has attracted a cult following and many have enjoyed pouring over its symbolism and posting their interpretations online.
The “standard interpretation” seems to be that the movie depicts the tragedy of what can happen when friends fall out in a traditional and proud catholic community. But this wasn’t what I got from it personally.
Living in an isolated farming community on a small island off the coast of Ireland, Padraic (Farrell) and Colm (Gleeson) have been long-time friends, spending their afternoons and evenings chatting together in the village pub. One day, out of the blue, Colm refuses to talk to Padraic any more, later explaining that he is too boring and too nice. He feels like he is wasting his life listening to his stories every day. Colm, a keen fiddle player, wants to focus on creating the music that will serve as his legacy once his days are over.
Padraic does not take this well. Clearly an Oral type, he cannot reconcile himself to Colm’s position and keeps trying to find a way to work his way back in again. Exasperated at Padraic’s persistence, Colm finally tells his former friend that, should he speak to him one more time, then he will cut off his own fingers, one by one. Deeply shocked, Padraic understands that he must give Colm space but still struggles with not being allowed to speak to him.
Things come to a head one night when Padraic, drunk on whiskey, confronts Colm in the pub, raging at him for his lack of friendship. After Padraic has been taken out of the pub by his sister, Colm mentions that this was actually the best interaction that he’d ever had with Padraic, implying that he’s warming to him again.
The next day, emboldened by hearing of Colm’s new-found respect, Padraic approaches him once again, down by the sea, to apologise for his behaviour the night before. Seeing his former friend now back in “nice guy” mode, and once again breaking the agreement, enrages Colm and he later cuts off his forefinger and flings it at the door of Padraic and his sister’s house. The pair are horrified. Yet later, Padraic tells his sister that he must return the finger to Colm. She reproaches him deeply, unable to comprehend why Padraic can’t seem to get the message.
As the days pass, Padraic starts to drop the nice guy act and begins to find his anger at the way he has been treated. One day he spies Colm making friends with a new arrival on the island. He cruelly tricks the new guy into leaving again, telling him his father has just died.
Feeling empowered both by his newly-found rage, and his belief that if he’s angry then Colm will accept him once again, Padraic once again approaches Colm, who seems at first amenable. Colm is excited that he’s just finished composing his piece for the violin, entitled The Banshees of Inisherin.
I found this scene gripping because I could sense Colm’s inherent goodness in opening the door to Padraic once again. But after the initial exchanges, Padraic becomes more pally still and I could feel a deep sense of foreboding. Despite all that has passed, Colm realises that nothing in Padraic has really changed, meaning that he has to take still more drastic action.
Padraic leaves the scene having invited Colm to the pub later. Colm, seeing no other option, cuts off the remaining fingers of his left hand. Once again, he throws the severed fingers at Padraic and his sister’s door.
Returning from the pub, where Colm had obviously not been present, Padraic finds his sister packing her bags, having finally decided to leave the island for good. One can sense his underlying desperation at still more people leaving his life, but he remains aloof from it. However, later that afternoon, Padraic discovers that Jenny, his favourite little donkey whom he allows in their house, has choked to death on one of Colm’s fingers.
This is the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back. Colm’s continued refusal to speak to him, his sister’s departure and now the loss of his favourite animal - this accumulation of events serves to send Padraic into full-blown rage. He confronts Colm and tells him that he is going to burn his house down the next day, hopefully with him still in it.
Padraic carries out his threat, unconcerned by whether Colm is at home or not. However, he leads Colm’s dog away to safety. But Colm is not in the house and does not die. The next day, Padraic returns to Colm’s house and spies him on the beach nearby. He gives Colm his dog back. Colm thanks him and suggests that they are square now. Padraic informs him that they would only have been square had he died in the fire. The movie ends with it clear that the battle between them will continue.
Padraic is the classic “Oral type,” from Reichian Character Structure. His need for friendship has driven him to adopt a nice-guy persona and to be willing to do pretty much anything to maintain a connection. The roots of his condition will be in the lack of physical or emotional connection with his mother in the first year of his life. Being snubbed is Padraic’s worst nightmare because it brings the felt sense of his lack of early bonding to the surface. Underneath all the nice-guy antics, Padraic is of course filled with rage and this finally emerges.
Colm seems to me to be less obviously neurotic. He appears to be an intelligent, normal guy, seeking something meaningful, who finds his days being eaten away in meaningless banter. The spectre of his eventual death drives him to take extreme measures to regain his sense of meaning.
Throughout the drama that takes place between them, Colm remains lucid and reflective. When asked about what’s going on between him and Padraic, by Padraic’s sister, his reply is realistic and coherent.
Seen through the lens of modern culture, I think Colm would be perceived as the one who is being unreasonable. Whereas Padraic merely wants to remain his friend. On the surface, it would seem like that is not so much to ask.
But there clearly is a lot more going on here. Colm is actually relatively unconcerned about cutting off his fingers, even though in many ways he lives to play the fiddle. He is unconcerned because the savage act has given him his individuality and his meaning in life back.
To me, there are deep statements here about the paradoxical relationship between our modern, comfort-driven society and our inherent need for meaning. Finally, Colm is willing to give up the fingers of his hand to recover meaning. Having done so, he feels clear. But Padraic, in many ways the archetype of the nice guy our society forges us to be, has now discovered his rage. Having done so, he will not let Colm off the hook so easily. Their entanglement will continue, quite likely until one of them dies.
The Banshees of Inisherin
For me , because I had recently been visualizing language as hands with fingers , reaching out , and either being burned , or allowed to hold , touch , feel, and offer - when I read the movie review about the fingers being cut off , the idea that hands with fingers are the SAME as hands with opposing thumbs - the hands just touch into the material world, but language reaches into the forest of human brain trees -- Understanding that lying is quite normal these days , especially to children , and totally normal to children as their language is developing , made me see this correlation , yet I do not know if that is what the film maker intended , but the correlation between the talking of the talker friend , and the friend who wanted to have silence to play music , who felt that the only way to explain the seriousness to his friend , of the talk abuse , was to abuse his own hands , and sever the digits . I recently dropped a "Friend " because I KNEW that there was NO WAY I was going to explain to her the complexity of my life , and demand the respect from her that would mean our relation - glitch was a relation SHIP , and thus a friend ship . It was impossible for me to fight her mind set . Just as the musician found with the talker , the talker was not going to give up , ever , even to the burning of houses and death of donkeys and loss of his own SISTER , he was just not going to stop . As maybe , now , should do I !! ha ha
the depth of the meaning of this movie , coming from you , someone who is dedicated to listening to the body - must have been so intense . no wonder you wrote about it . I had wanted to see the movie but am really glad that I listened to your translation of it first . I recently watched "the Whale" and was able to see it through that filter of symbols and deeper meanings , and it affected me at a profound level . Thank you for explaining it , its so genius it always makes my mind wonder if the film maker or script writer can actually be that genius , that they can depict such a deep thought - consciously . I guess that is what art is . In the bible there is the story of the woman at the well , jesus says that she has FIVE husbands , and to go back to her world and sin no more , and in that the message is about the five senses , that to attain the perfected reality one must stop being ruled by the senses - as he calls it " husbands . " But in this case , the two FREINDS , are not married , they have an agreement , and to me the idea is that the violin player is the body , and the talker is the mind , neurotic and wasting time . The body keeps sacrificing very important things , fingers are so precious to us , to get the mind to pay attention , but the mind instead wants to burn the house down but save the DOG , - the dog being subject to the command of man , -- this movie is very profound -- then the DONKEY of the talker chokes on the discarded fingers and DIES - the donkey being like "Oh brother donkey " of one of the saints thanking his body for carrying his mind all the years of his life , but in this case , the donkey / body of the talker actually dies . And his sister leaves . I think this movie is a serious call to attention to the fact that we are asking our bodies to stop feeling and stop being able to make music , by not respecting the silence and seriousness of the relationship that we are experiencing with our body . It is the music maker . The talker is there to expand reality , not to control and maintain it . There is a guy Dispensa who says Ideas are electrical , but emotions are magnetic - The musician wanted to experience that magnetic field , but the talker wanted to just keep zapping the environment with his polite but controlling story . The genius of having the friend cut the fingers off to rid himself of the GRIP of the language game that was strangling him , its like such a serious way to explain this relationship between language and the body . I have been studying the dreaded narcissism , and realized that it develops at the same time that language is formatting . That language is the SAME as hands reaching out , except its sound reaching out into other humans . In the narcissist , the words they use are not heard , don't work , or are silenced . They learn to use a strategy to spin their language in a way that works in the world around them, and to do that they develop an INNER persona , who is the guide , the intermediary between the external voice and the inner workings . So - when the Talker character in the story released and expressed his honest anger , it was his REAL voice , not his fake diplomatic voice that the Musician felt was drowing his life , drowning his time , and not actually representing the spirit of his friend . -- I really enjoyed contemplating the movie through your perception - thank you for bringing it into my sphere .