The Banshees of Inisherin is a dark comedy film that came out in 2022. It is set in the 1920s and was written and directed by Martin McDonagh. The movie centers around two longtime friends, Colm, and Pádraic, living on a fictional remote island called Inisherin off the west coast of Ireland. These two friends used to spend their days in the pub, drinking the day away, until Colm decides to abruptly end the friendship. Colm explains that Pádraic is just too “dull” for him and that he has no desire to waste more time hearing him talk. Colm is a composer and is motivated to leave a legacy through music. When Pádraic refuses to accept the termination of their friendship, Colm escalates the conflict by threatening to cut off one of his own fingers every time Pádraic talks to him.
This film has a lot to say about the nature of friendship in remote areas. After Colm cuts off his first finger and throws it at their door, Pádraic’s sister is convinced it is time to leave the village and move to the big city. She tries to convince Pádraic to join her, but he remains committed to the village.
This raises the question: could a feud escalate like this in a big city? I doubt it. The extent to which the two friends are entangled in one another’s lives would be highly unlikely in a big city. In this village, there is just one pub, only a handful of roads, and Colm and Pádraic continue bumping into one another.
Despite the conflict, neither is willing to give up their village life. Pádraic loves his donkey and his daily rituals. The social fabric of Inisherin gives him a sense of rootedness. Is it because he is dull that he has no ambition beyond the remote island? This is a central tension in the film. On the one hand, Pádraic does not crave legacy. Rather, he enjoys modest pleasures: arriving at the pub at 2 p.m., taking care of his donkey, chatting about nothing, really. This contentment reflects his orientation, not his intellect. He values kindness and kinship.
Colm, by contrast, equates ambition with depth. His prioritization of ambition may reflect a kind of urban-centric orientation. A post from 2014 demonstrates popular culture contributes to simplified or stereotyped portrayals of rural life. Those tropes exist in Banshees, but by complicating them, the film offers a more layered representation of rural life.
Why can’t the ambitious composer leave the island? Colm craves the quiet of village life, so he can focus on his composing, but he is unwilling to accept that village life requires him to tolerate the villagers. Would he actually be happier in the big city? In Dublin for example, what he would gain in anonymity, he would certainly lose in other ways. Yes, he wouldn’t have to put up with Pádraic, but he would have to deal with consequences of city life like noise and chaos. Colm’s anxiety about legacy would not disappear in the city; it would likely intensify. The competition and indifference of urban life could make fear of insignificance more apparent to Colm. In a place crowded with other musicians and artists, he may be forced to confront how ordinary he might be. By the end of the film the irony is apparent. The ambitious composer, Colm, has self-mutilated. His ambition does not make him morally superior to Pádraic.
The film also invites us to consider whether there is an obligation to remain friends with people we can’t stand. Most people are comfortable with the idea that individuals have a right to decide not to be someone’s friend. In a big city, Colm could more easily exercise this right. On a remote island, less so. Island life necessarily conflicts with the individual rights urban dwellers take for granted. Individuals cannot freely choose their associates in a place this small and remote. In a rural context, residents must coexist, even if that means tolerating an unwanted interaction from time to time. This demonstrates that individualism and notions of free will are often constrained in practice by forces like geography.
The central tragedy for Pádraic is his realization that the social order is collapsing. When his fellow villagers don’t believe in the community, he can no longer experience the sense of belonging he craves. Inisherin represents the type of rural environment that is stuck between two worlds. It is unable to deliver the sense of community that Pádraic relies on, but it also cannot deliver the sense of individuality that Colm seeks to assert. The tension between community and autonomy is thus at the heart of the film’s tragedy.
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