Embracing the Paradox
The Banshees of Inisherin's lessons in friendship, mental health, and paradoxology.
In 1923, The Irish Civil War surges on—cannon-fire and smoke-stained skies offer a bleak backdrop for the simple lives of Irishmen only so far removed from death and dissension. Yet, amid the impending danger around them, life’s prizes are a donkey, a dog, and a two-o’clock pint of Guinness with a friend.
In The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh risks a vital message: embrace the paradox.
The film’s immediate foray into the lives of Pádraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson) feels sudden in a slow-burn film: as Pádraic cascades down the velvet-green hillside to Colm’s house, he sees no shadow of turning in his typical afternoon plans. Colm’s willful ignorance of his (former) friend is eerie, a revelation of his simultaneous stagnation on Inisherin as well as his disgust with supposed “dullness.”
At once, Pádraic is confused, and needs a pint more than ever before. He orders two: one for his friend who’s just acting odd today (no way could they be “rowin’”), and sits waiting to resume their habit. Pádraic feels the organism of their friendship splicing.
The Banshees of Inisherin brings to life a mediocre world; everything seems far away, inconsequential—yet everything matters. Counts of cannon shots as Pádraic marches across the beach; talks of the war ransacking their quaint pub and their stone-and-hay houses and their dog and donkey. This film is a balance of small-town happenings and nationwide decay. So, too, is Pádraic and Colm’s friendship. From the outset, it seems as though Colm simply doesn’t desire friendship due to “aimless conversation” (which, of course, Pádraic always thought was “normal talkin’”). As the film progresses, the smoke and cannon-shots of their friendship become as visible as the civil war around them.
On Despairing
“...And how’s the despair?” the priest (David Pearse) inquires of Colm in the church confessional. (The few scenes that take place in the confessional reveal a stark, sad trajectory in Colm’s unraveling. They reveal compromise and deterioration in both the religious figure of the film and the solemn pessimist.) The confessional’s only light is cross-shaped, shining on the characters’ faces—intersection at the eye—provides an award-worthy cinematographic setting for despair. Suddenly, Colm’s recklessness becomes justifiable. On a solitary island constructed around customs and habits, he falls prey to that daunting vice.
Pádraic’s response summarizes the 20th-Century perspective on mental health: he recalls Colm’s cold and reserved behavior. “That’s what I was thinkin’, that he was depressed,” Pádraic speculates to his sister. “He could at least keep it to himself, like. You know, push it down, like the rest of us.”
As the epitomizing diagnosis on mental health in the film, it’s also a clear revelation of McDonagh’s striking skill of double entendre. The film is a comedy, an often hilarious survey of friendship. Simultaneously—with no minimization of the former—it is a dark tale of the effects of isolation and depression. For Colm, “despair” is an ongoing battle—one that brings him to wish he had fewer fingers. For Pádraic, friendship is as ransacked as the towns across the sea.
Paradoxology
The Banshees of Inisherin is an anomaly; it is a cautionary tale, a historical recollection, a humorous depiction of rural living, and a tragic survey of mental health—full-throated and subtle at the same time.
Martin McDonagh’s characterization is paradoxical. Pádraic, a simple (even dull) but loyal friend prevails in a film rank with depravity. The policeman, Peader (Gary Lydon) beats his son Dominic (Barry Keoghan); the priest curses and gives himself over to anger while simultaneously urging Colm not to; Colm fulfills his promises to cut off a finger after every encounter with Pádraic, and gift it to him by throwing it at his door. Yet, as Pádraic tries to save his friendship, he also descends into a madness not uncommon on Inisherin.
In a film so simply executed, McDonagh captures the beauty of nature and its inhabitants in awe-inspiring ways. One breathtaking setting takes place as the ever-hopeful (but practically hopeless) Dominic asks Siobáhn if she would ever fall in love with him. Grass-blades perpetually flow in the wind and small waves fluctuate, never crashing hard, as Dominic caustically mumbles, “there goes that dream.”
In all the light and colorful places, Siobáhn believes she has every reason to reject Dominic’s romantic proposal. Cinematographer Ben Davis’s use of light, space, and nature in the film reveals this superbly haunting paradox. The balance of emotion and natural beauty is seen clearly: “Davis expresses his characters’ melancholy inner lives through a haunting interplay of light and shadow reminiscent of McDonagh’s beloved Night of the Hunter.”
The Banshees of Inisherin forces its viewers to hold in tension otherwise paradoxical things. The island is beautiful, but darkness creeps. The town and pub are simple, but a “simple” friendship is complicated. The confessional is dark and dim and the priest is half as pious as he should be, but there seems nowhere else for Colm to go to confess his despair’s outworking. Streams peacefully flow and grass quaintly grows as heartbreak crashes like a wave.
Perhaps Jesus beckons us to do the same. As Christians, we live inside a paradoxical world not unlike Inisherin. The world is sin-stricken; abuse, racism, sexism, homophobia, and bigotry often run rampant—yet Christians are those with bright hope for tomorrow. We live in the tension of a broken world and an unbroken future. Perhaps our sentiment is the same as Samwise Gamgee at the end of The Lord of the Rings: “Is everything sad going to come untrue?” Indeed, Christ will cure all despair in time (Rev. 21:1–4).
We abide in the “Already Not-Yet.” We are saved, but not yet removed from the broken world. McDonagh asks us to face the paradox. The Banshees of Inisherin begs us to reckon with darkness and hold hope for, at the very least, a friend. Christ asks us to face the mystery. He wills us to hold hope in the loving Savior, making peace with the madness around.