The Banshees of Inisherin & Midnights

 

Friday evening, lying on the couch struck by my period cramps, I ended up watching Directors on Directors: Taylor Swift & Martin McDonagh. My initial plan was to watch Martin McDonagh’s short film Six Shooter, which was recommended by a friend the night before while we were discussing Martin McDonagh’s work. My YouTube search for Six Shooter also brought me the Directors on Directors episode with Taylor Swift and Martin McDonagh.

At a first glance, it looked like an odd pairing: a 53-year-old playwright turned into a filmmaker known for his tragicomedies and a 33-year-old ex-teenage-country-singer turned into an incomparable popular artist. Plus, neither makes me think of a “director” first, since the former’s writer identity and the latter’s popstar identity are more prominent.

Upon a deeper glance, I was completely on board for this pairing: the writer/director of the movie that I have revisited the most and the artist of the album that I have listened the most so far in 2023.

 

I must admit that Martin McDonagh was not a filmmaker in my radar before I watched The Banshees of Inisherin earlier this year. I missed In Bruges when it came out, put it in my “to-watch” list, but it fell through the cracks. I watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri on a plane, thought it was one of the more interesting movies of that season, but didn’t think much about it afterward.

I was on the road till mid-January this year. When I came back to Copenhagen, The Banshees of Inisherin (will call it The Banshees for short from now on) was one of the films widely shown in cinemas. I found the trailer interesting. Sister in Movies wasn’t so interested in watching it at the time, so I made plans to watch it by myself after the first lecture of the new semester. Despite the big audience that day for the film, I was somehow the only one in the last row of Grand Teatret’s big room. After the film ended, I left Grand thinking “I am glad I lived to see this gem.”

I love watching things that are very funny and very sad at the same time, e.g., Nanette, Fleabag, Russian Doll ... It is very hard to strike a balance in that tone, but when it is done well, the end product gives you a lot to reflect on if you wish to. If you don’t, you can just take in the funny parts and run away with them or you can complain about how sad and depressing what you just watched was. The Banshees masters this tone in my opinion.

The film also has multiple stories well-juxtaposed. There is the personal story as we watch the interactions of the town people, the historical story with Irish civil war going on in the background, and the fable story with the several animals having almost three-dimensional characters and the banshee figure. You can take all the stories in or just follow one based on what you prefer. Either way, the film’s value doesn’t diminish.

When it comes to the personal layer, it is also rare to be able to relate to multiple characters in a film even while watching it for the first time. In the case of The Banshees, without major spoilers, I could feel Colm’s despair and self-destructiveness, Pádraic’s grief over being dumped by his best friend in a drastic manner, Siobhán’s need to leave, and whatever Dominic feels when he says, “there goes that dream.”

I finally watched In Bruges three days after I watched The Banshees and loved it as well. People are keen on comparing the two since both has the same main actors and are written and directed by the same person. The consensus among the people who are old-time fans of In Bruges seems to be that The Banshees isn’t as good as In Bruges. I disagree, but I also think that the comparison is unnecessary. I am glad that I didn’t have to bring any In Bruges baggage to my viewing of The Banshees.

 

I must also admit that I have never been a Swiftie.

Shortly after I moved to Bay Area in 2015, I volunteered to visit a primary school together with my then manager Guy Lohmann to promote Computer Science among the students. At that time, Guy was at IBM for 30 years, and I was there for 3 months. We were our own odd pairing. In my presentation to the students, I had a picture of my one-year-old self in front of a computer with a date on top of the picture. One of the male students in the classroom reacted to this picture by saying “Wow! You are the same age as Taylor Swift.” Technically, I am one year older than her, but this is not the point of this story. That was the first time I had to acknowledge the real-world impact of Taylor Swift.

Since then, I didn’t keep up with Taylor Swift much beyond the occasional songs I got exposed to by the popular culture, until Fall 2021. Taylor Swift was the musical guest in a Saturday Night Live (SNL) episode around mid-November 2021. She played All Too Well for 10mins, which was unusual for SNL. It was the first time I heard that song. I thought it was a very beautiful breakup song and form of storytelling. Then, I got into the wormhole of the internet to read about what she has been up to. I learned that she started directing her own videos (“Respect!”) and re-recorded her old albums to assert ownership of her own work over her old record company (“You go girl!”).

In those days, I had my own struggle with asserting ownership for my work and funding resources. My struggle ended with me losing part of my work and resources. I felt devastated by it, since I still don’t feel that I am at a stage in my career where I can spare any resources or work. I blamed myself for not asserting things earlier with a higher level of self-confidence.

While I found Taylor Swift’s battle inspiring, I am also old enough to know that some battles aren’t worth it. If I had entered a battle, and that would have been more natural for my overall stubborn self, I could have lost it all. I needed my energy to maintain the remaining parts of my work and resources in the long run.

Nevertheless, I decided to follow Taylor Swift’s work beyond just random exposures. She released a new album, Midnights, last fall. I gave it a proper listen at the end of this January. Then, I couldn’t let it go. I tried her previous albums as well, but none of them stuck except for a few songs here and there. I wrote to Academic Sister, whom I usually go to punk concerts with, how much I loved listening to Midnights and questioned “maybe something is wrong with me.” She replied “No, you are just open to mainstream music.”

Midnights is an album that highlights becoming more self-aware, which to me is the best part of getting older. I think that is why I love listening to it so much.

 

I had a lovely Friday evening watching the conversation between Taylor Swift and Martin McDonagh. It was a genuine, constructive, and inspiring conversation between two accomplished people whom most people wouldn’t imagine in the same room. Whoever thought of this pairing, I appreciate it.