Yeah, I think that’s my take. At the end of the movie, I think that both men had moved to escaping their death spiral. So any busybody banshees predicting their deaths were way off. Unless they were predicting the deaths of a wee donkey or an unloved manchild, but we didn’t really see any banshees wail for them.
But maybe the movie should have been longer to really prove that.
I like you guyses takes. I also really like @BaggerMcGuirk’s idea about the Irish civil war. It was kinda strange that the war was happening in the background, wasn’t it?
I don’t know enough about it to say, but my brain loves the idea of a civil war being one guy saying “I just don’t like you anymore” to another guy.
I’m not sure it was a death spiral though. I think if not a midlife crisis, then Colm was definitely in an existential crisis. When a man his age starts talking about his legacy, you know he’s heard the banshees scream.
I don’t see that as suicidal though, I see it as a struggle with regular old mortality.
The thing that caught me was how Colms new ideas kept driving Padraic increasingly bonkers. Padraic could just have said “Feck it, that guy’s an asshole”, and gotten another friend, or moved to the mainland with his sister, and forgotten about it. His donkey would still be alive, his values would be intact, Dominic would’ve liked him more, and he would’ve rid himself of an asshole friend.
The only power Colm had over him was the power Padraic chose to give him.
He just couldn’t let it go. He was fundamentally incapable of it.
Which is part of the stories I mentioned in my initial post, where one character’s adoption of nihilism or their rejection of common values drive the other characters mad.
In those stories, like Janne Teller’s “Nothing”, the other characters could just ignore it and go on with their lives, but something about the change in the other person is so threatening to them that they are incapable of doing it, and then the story becomes about how they are transformed by that.
Do you think Colm escaped?
This conversation makes me want to watch it again, but my read was that he was just as full of dread in the end as he was in the beginning. He made some kind of peace with Padraic, but I don’t know that he made peace with his mortality.
Padraic was injured, I think that’s made clear by Dominic’s reaction, but he also managed to hold on to some semblance of his original identity, reflected in his love of animals.
That’s a good point. But it’s also a joke, so I don’t know how much weight I’m supposed to give it.
It kinda makes me wanna join Tom’s team and not like it. There’s definitely something here that’s going over my head. I have that dumb feeling in my bones.
Maybe the real banshees were the friends we lost along the way? (I kid! I kid!)
I don’t think there’s any real argument against this point. It goes beyond subtext to being the central theme of the movie.
Now you got me digging through the movie! :D
And you are correct, the lady at the lake is Mrs. McCormick. I just didn’t recognize her from the previous scenes.
We think she’s beckoning Siobhán (the sister) but actually it’s Dominic, who is not sneaking, but sidling up behind her.
The sister calls her a ghoul and Dominic says he always calls her a ghoul too, because she is a ghoul. And that’s his argument for why he and Siobhán have so much in common. “Calling old people ghouls and that.”.
You know who else might be called ghouls? Banshees.
So I guess that means I think the blurry figure on the cliffs is Mrs McCormick. But I could give you that one, because it could just as well have been Colm, or Odin, or Bigfoot.
But now that I’m looking at it, they do seem to be holding a staff. Just like Mrs. McCormick in the scene where she sits down in front of Colms smoldering house:
I also base my interpretation on the reaction of the sister.
She’s smiling and waving to Padraic from the boat. Her smile disappears and her face turns grave as she sees the figure. There’s a shot of her looking at the figure, then over at Padraic.
Yes, but Colm tells Padraic about the banshees, and how they don’t scream anymore.
Here’s the conversation:
P: What’s it called?
C: The Banshees of Inisherin, I was thinking.
P: But there are no banshees on Inisherin.
C: I know, I just love the double S-H sounds.
P: Aye. There’s plenty of double S-H on Inisherin.
C: Yeah, maybe there are banshees too. I just don’t think they scream to portend death anymore. I think they just sit back, amused, and observe.
P: Portend?
C: Yeah. I keep having thoughts about playing it for you at your funeral. But that wouldn’t be fair on either of us, would it?
P: Well, that’s great that you finished your tune, Colm.
Skimming through the movie just now, I also realize that Mrs. McCormick is in the village shop, observing the conversation between Padraic and the shopkeeper, when the shopkeeper chastizes him for “never havin’ a lick of news from his side of the island”.
Paedar the policeman comes in, and tells of a man who walked into a lake. “29 and nothing wrong with him, the fool!”.
Mrs. McCormick never says a word, she just sits there smoking her pipe.
Oooh, I forgot about that.
I should have said I did feel when watching it that Mrs. McCormick is definitely a figure of death or misfortune. So in combination with that conversation you quoted, I’m sold!
That’s some nice work! You’ve sold me on the idea. It’s just that, like Blue Valentine, I don’t think I’ll ever have a desire to watch this movie again.
I think the funniest thing in the movie is when we hear Siobhan’s letter to Padraic which starts, “I am safely ensconced in the mainland and, Padraic, it’s lovely here…”
Later, he begins his reply with, “Dear Siobhan, Obviously I don’t know what “ensconced” is…”
:D
they talk about that bulgarian song… I thought it was an Irish song ;) but I knew Voix Bulgares before that
I’ll argue against this point. The Banshees of Inisherin is a movie about people, not nations. The personal conflict doesn’t symbolize the war, the war symbolizes the personal conflict.
Cool! I’ll watch that later. Thanks!
Mm, well, except for the fact that the irrationality of Colm that a lot of viewers evidently find perplexing or disturbing about the story is probably best explained by being indicative of the irrationality of something like civil war. I mean, I think it’s a moving story about people, for sure, and that’s a lot of its power, but I think that like so many stories set in Ireland, it’s very much a story about Ireland and its history.
That was my take, as well. My friend argued the other side, but that seems much less interesting and satisfying. As further evidence, I enjoyed the film a great deal, but he hated it.
I agree. I watched it again yesterday, and I thought it was a lot easier to parse on the second go, with all the context.
I think maybe it’s a reflection on Irish culture and history, but I don’t think it’s about the civil war. I don’t see a metaphor for the treaty, or a struggle for territory.
I’m also totally convinced that your point about the indifference and hardness of the people on the island plays a huge part, and that Colms meanness is actually a struggle to survive severe depression, in a place where the only two people who might conceivably listen to him is his dog and the ocean.
Even the priest doesn’t care about his feelings. Padraic, for all his troubles, is really mostly concerned with what Colms depression means to him.
Padraic is a victim of Colms depression, but he’s also partly to blame for his own misfortune. It’s not Colm that asks him to spoil his niceness.
What confused me the first time around was the fingers. That’s a such an extreme reaction to depression that it kinda overstates the point, but I’m nevertheless sure that that’s what’s wrong with Colm.
As for Mrs. McCormick I think she’s a manifestation of Colms anguish at the thought of life coming to an end, which is the trigger for his depression. She’s a symbolic banshee, if not a real one.
I think she’s both a symbol of death (“Et in Arcadia Ego”) and a device to make us fear for the characters.
There is another very clever moment when Mrs. McCormick visits Siobhán at their home. She asks how long it’s been since their parents died. I think Siobhán says 8 years, and Mrs. McCormick says “Doesn’t time be flying?” which Padraic finishes by saying “Aye, when you’re having fun.”.
Time flies is time flees, which in latin is tempus fugit, a classic memento mori.
I also changed my mind about the ending. I think the fact that Colm is humming is an indiciation that his mood is starting to improve. Padraic is still injured.
I was a bit cautious going into this because I wasn’t sure about how dark it would get and if that would work for me, but I liked this a lot particularly based on the strength of the cast/performances and the location. That moment when Dominic tries to ask out Siobhan… Barry Keoghan just sells you on what an emotional gutpunch it is.
I don’t think the name of the movie refers to the the old lady. If anything, I could see it referring to the bleakness and dreariness of the setting. You either get used to the monotony or it wears you down or drives you away (see Siobhan).
I too was wondering about that. When he was just standing there looking towards the sea, I kept an eye out for and didn’t see any foot prints despite Colm not standing so close to the water that waves would explain that. Kinda like the old lady’s presence making it possible for his ghost/spirit to linger, be visible and have a farewell moment with Padriac. But given that the dog then stayed with Colm, I guess that’s not the case.
Only it works better the other way around. We watch Colm and Padraic fighting over nothing, and think it don’t make any sense, people aren’t this irrational. Then the movie shows us the explosions* in the distance and we reaalize maybe they are.
* The constant explosions were a bit much. I don’t know a lot about the Irish Civil war but I was under the impression it was a fairly small scale conflict.
Right? We know wars are bad, we’ve seen a million other movies about it. Cold and Padraic are much more interesting as individuals.
Definitely. Watching it the second time, I take back everything I said about that role. His performance and the character both have a lot more weight than I realized on the first go.
Dominic is a lot smarter than he seems. A lot smarter than Padraic.
I think that’s established at the dinner table, when he says they have a depressing house (correctly) and Siobhán asks him if he’d rather go back to his own barrel of laughs, and he says “Touché” and Padraic goes “To what?”.
He calls Mrs. McCormick a ghoul (if you believe the banshee track, that’s astute) and he also sees Padraic slipping when Padraic has no idea himself, when they’re sitting on the cliffs.
He first calls out Padraic for his obsession when they’re drinking on the docks, and again by the dinner table. “What’s this mope so mopey for? He’s just a fecking man, lads. A fat ginger man!”.
If Padraic had listened to his words, he would’ve been a lot better off.
It’s also interesting, returning to the banshee track, that Dominic finds Mrs. McCormicks staff in the beginning of the movie. He tells Padraic he thinks it’s weird it has a hook on the end. “A stick with a hook. What would you use it for, I wonder?”.
He brings it with him to the bar, and the inkeep asks him to put it outside. I don’t think it’s meaningful, I think it’s just foreshadowing.
I was really watching for it, and he’s standing there, and he’s got soot on his face, and it’s a funny angle, but I think he’s smiling as he stands there humming his little tune.
It’s subtle, but I think that’s a man who is starting to see the sunlight.
Tough questions and observations! This probably won’t make much sense to anyone, and maybe not so much to me depending on whether I’ve had a few beers or not, but here’s my rationale:
Colm was sane, as you said he’s rational. However, he was depressed, and not only depressed he was at the end of depression into despair, as established by the priest in the confessional. Colm was at his wits’ end but he still had his wits, he just didn’t know what to do with it because he believed he couldn’t allow himself to commit suicide because Catholic and a while ago. So what do you do when you despise life but want to still keep trying but really wish you could just pull the plug? You lash out. There might even be a slight argument (just occurred to me, give it no weight) that he wanted to act out so much that someone would kill him, which comes back to the “I’m going to set your house on fire tomorrow at 2pm” thing.
The thing that I think I get that nearly anyone else doesn’t get is that the town around him not committing him or confronting him is actually really normal for back then, places like that. Granted the cutting off fingers bit is a step beyond, but not that much of a step considering how people self-destruct quietly and, most importantly, privately. It seemed like a very normal thing to me, to watch him essentially go crazy but in a personal way, and self destruct in a very personal way, and nobody says Boo. I’ve seen that dozens of times. I still see it. It’s None of Your Business. That carries immense weight through most of my life, and still does even though I’ve lived in a city for the last 30 years. It’s just None of Your Business, so butt out.
It’s just a thing, a thing where the insular community and culture respects the individual down to that level. I grew up among Amish, Mennonite, snake handler Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, every one of whom I consider to be pretty far around the bend as far as general cultural insanity goes, but I was raised and to a point still believe to this day that as long as they are making that decision for themselves and not hurting anyone else, then it’s their choice.
Note, I’m not a libertarian, much less a Libertarian. Once the field gets a certain size and everyone affects everyone else at some significant political or economic level, then we step in. But if Billy Bob wants to drink himself to death up in the holler, then no one says otherwise unless he beats his wife or children or sets something in the town on fire.
Anyway, that was my take. Colm was mentally done with life but couldn’t get out, and started lashing out at his friend for no good reason, and trying to force some sort of legacy out of his own life no matter what it took, and shouted out at the world “Look at me! Look at me goddammit, I’m here! I’m alive!” and cut off his fingers as exclamation. The town saw it, knew what he was doing, and allowed him to do it because it was his choice, as bad as it was.
Freely argue, no shame in me being completely wrong, it just didn’t feel that strange to me from a personal perspective.
I think that’s implied, for sure. When Padraic says “To our graves we’re taking this” that sounds a lot like a death threat.
Mrs. McCormick has predicted “One death, maybe two” and she specifically mentions Padraic and Siobhán, but we don’t know it’s a fakeout at that point.
When Siobhán left the island and didn’t drown, I assumed it would be Colm and Padraic. I was sure of Padraic at that point, because she was seen standing on the cliff next to him.
When he looks inside the house that’s on fire, and he sees Colm sitting there smoking, I think we’re supposed to contemplate that Colm may have found a way out of his depression that doesn’t involve killing himself.
I don’t think any of that is a scheme of his though, and it’s all part of the fakeout anyway. Ultimately Colm jumps out the window, even though he does stay long enough to get soot on his face.
I always go too long, apologies, but anyway, I have some thoughts on how Colm talks about how he’s feeling, and to whom:
There are only three people in this movie that Colm talks to about his depression. That is the priest, Padraic and Siobhán.
I have a strong theory that he confides in Siobhán because he recognizes her as being almost as miserable as he is, and he desperately wants her to admit it so they can talk about it.
When the movie starts, my read is that he has already given up on the priest. The priest doesn’t give a damn about his feelings, he just wants to know if he has been sinning, or intends to sin.
The priest makes that clear during every confessional, and every time he makes that clear, Colm stops talking about his feelings, and starts messing with him instead.
He confides everything to Padraic when he joins him on the bench outside the pub, after their initial miscommunications, and in that scene I think he is telling Padraic (and us) exactly how he feels, and exactly what he needs to do to get better.
Padraic doesn’t listen to a word of it. He is too dim and too innocent to ever engage with something as profound and painful as Colms depression, and that’s why Colm needs him to leave him alone.
What I realized watching it the second time was that Colm actually does have a very good reason to lash out, which is Padraics inability to listen and engage with other peoples emotions, same as the rest of the island.
That’s also why I officially love this movie now. I’m no longer tempted to join the unlikers. I think it’s really fricken good.
it’s really feckin’ good.
I once was in a similar situation like Colm, and I just could not stand a long time friend anymore, because you just could not talk with him about serious issues. Sometimes issues are just too heavy for friends to handle. I got rid of him, and felt better. I did not throw fingers at him…
