At the end of the year, our film critics offer you their favorite of 2022. Last of three tickets.
The grace of Banshees of Inisherin by Martin McDonagh is spellbinding.
The filmmaker of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, inspired by the mysterious land of Ireland, gave us the best film of 2022 with this cruel and sublime work. Everything, from the sumptuous landscapes to the perfect framing, passing through the scenario steeped in layers of meaning, blends smoothly in black humor and tragedy. The superb acting of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson illuminates this film about loneliness, blind fate and broken friendship.
A century ago, after the spasms of the civil war, in this island beaten by the winds where everyone knows the secrets of the others, the brutal and absurd rupture of the emotional bond of the two men, once inseparable, feeds the local chronicle. But a game of massacre pushes these soon-to-be-enemy brothers into the abyss. The voices and violins of Irish ballads, the atmospheres of superstitions and religious decrees offer almost Shakespearian resonances heavy with sadness and aborted hopes. The haunted secondary characters who surround the leading duo enrich the plot: Barry Keoghan as a village simpleton, between romantic dreams and traumas, like Kerry Condon, as a woman who understands many things and cashes in, but will eventually break free.
By mixing genres with a hellish aplomb, inviting emotion, surrealism, horror production and period film to his table, McDonagh takes us into the realm of allegory while brushing a background social with admirable thoroughness. Are we in the tale or the fable? This story full of sound, fury and open chasms, with images embracing the cozy local pub, stuffy lodgings and misty cliffs, takes on the shadow of a national legend. Banshees were said to be fairies who came to announce their death to the Irish. Here, the black shadow of an old witch, apparently drawn from the moors of macbeth, stands as a female oracle. But male psychology, full of modesty and blockages, remains at the center of this work which approaches silence with stylistic rigor and exceptional depth of field. The Banshees of Inisherin takes the time to distill its sap, like the great old-fashioned films, of which this one perpetuates the most inspired tradition.