Unpopular Opinions (2 Viewers)

[ann post]

In continuiation of the unpopularity

I think it's a great movie with 4 great character / forces at play. Gleeson and farrell could have carried it as a two man show, but Condon and Keoghan add the layer that makes me want to come back to it.

I think that article where yerman spends hours questioning McDonagh's Irishness can get to fuck.

 

[flashback]

yeah, setting it during the civil war was no accident. whether it's meant to serve as a backdrop or an allegory is another matter.
i haven't seen the movie, but does the fact that it's set in the civil war have any bearing on the plot? i.e. could it have been set ten years earlier without affecting the movie?

I thought it was meant as a vague kind of backdrop to underline how isolated their lives were. You can see and hear the civil war going on somewhere over there, the pointlessness of it is noted. There's the theme of living purposeful lives, a life that means something maybe, leaving a legacy; and then in the background there's pointless killing and self inflicted mayhem, where people don't know whose side they're even on or why.

The Guard's character as an out-and-out cunt is again emphasized when he's talking about going over to the mainland to watch lads get hanged. Again he's not actually sure who's getting hanged or why, but he's getting paid to watch people get killed and this is class.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Colin Farrell wasn't very good in it at all

Now this is a take worthy of this thread.

 

[Space]

yeah, setting it during the civil war was no accident. whether it's meant to serve as a backdrop or an allegory is another matter.
i haven't seen the movie, but does the fact that it's set in the civil war have any bearing on the plot? i.e. could it have been set ten years earlier without affecting the movie?

It could have been set last year with the same basic story.

So why was it based during and referencing the Civil War if not to make a comment on his presumed belief that it was a pointless conflict? (asking those questions without expecting an answer here so don't bother). Jury (of me) is still out on McDonagh's reasoning for setting it when he did.

My simple explanation of the civil war was that the counter revolutionaries who were armed by the Brits did not want Ireland to become the socialist republic that Connolly (for example) had envisioned and killed 100s if not 1000s to make sure of it. The winner of course was capitalism.

 

[ann post]

have i told the story ad nauseum yet that i was nearly in it?

 

[Lili Marlene]

My simple explanation of the civil war was that the counter revolutionaries who were armed by the Brits did not want Ireland to become the socialist republic that Connolly (for example) had envisioned and killed 100s if not 1000s to make sure of it. The winner of course was capitalism.

This is the thing for me, this explanation for the war is at the very least contested and I think it leans a bit further into arguments about who Connolly does and does not represent than mainstream discourse currently allows. Unless the opinions of a bunch of shitposting hammer and sickle and Connolly avatars on twitter now represent the mainstream, you know?

So when people decide that this is a bad film because they themselves made the intuitive leap that the two lads fighting represent the two sides of the civil war in all its complexities, and also that the film gets the war wrong because it does not represent their own contested reading of the war.... jeez I dunno guys, maybe widen your scope for what makes it good or bad?

For example, here is a reading that I could get behind: since Inisherin vaguely means "island of Ireland," it's fair enough to say that it's a stand-in for Ireland, which makes Ireland itself a stand-in for the rest of the world, and the civil war simply a representative of wider troubles.

Not an attack on you or anything, I appreciate your thoughts on this, i'm just trying to work out my own.

 

[pete]

have i told the story ad nauseum yet that i was nearly in it?

The Civil War?

 

[Deadmanposting]

Isn't the civil war the allegory?
Like the pointedness of the film I got was about our current divided societies, Brexit and what's going on in the US and so on. But it's happening in Ireland too.
People getting torn apart on the personal and national level.

I used to be friends with Mr Smith down the road, but he voted in a way that displeases me, now we are not friends. Kind of thing.

Like I have been put out with friends over opinions they have had on some political subject or whatever, and you step back after a while and you realise it's the dumbest shit.

Or thats' what shone through for me. The whole thing is a Rorschach test on some level, not a puzzle to be solved.

Maybe it's McDonagh missing his old mates cos he's been so focused on being a hotshot writer/director and making sweet sweet love to the lady off the TV

 

[magicbastarder]

i don't know if brexit, etc., was in his mind when writing it - i think i recall reading that the script has been knocking around in some form for about 20 years?

 

[Deadmanposting]

i don't know if brexit, etc., was in his mind when writing it - i think i recall reading that the script has been knocking around in some form for about 20 years?

Clearly he was waiting for the right time

I mean clearly insofar as I like my opinion that I have cobbled together, and do not wish to change it

 

[Lili Marlene]

Isn't the civil war the allegory?

Oh God the film is an allegory again. I'm out.


Edit:

Or thats' what shone through for me. The whole thing is a Rorschach test on some level, not a puzzle to be solved.

Oh I agree with this I think, guess I'm back in

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

Oh God the film is an allegory again. I'm out.


Oh I agree with this I think, guess I'm back in

No, you misunderstood, the film is Al Gore-y.

 

[Lili Marlene]

No, you misunderstood, the film is Al Gore-y.

When he cuts his fingers off, like? Yeah gross. Gory as hell.

 

[Space]

This is the thing for me, this explanation for the war is at the very least contested and I think it leans a bit further into arguments about who Connolly does and does not represent than mainstream discourse currently allows. Unless the opinions of a bunch of shitposting hammer and sickle and Connolly avatars on twitter now represent the mainstream, you know?

So when people decide that this is a bad film because they themselves made the intuitive leap that the two lads fighting represent the two sides of the civil war in all its complexities, and also that the film gets the war wrong because it does not represent their own contested reading of the war.... jeez I dunno guys, maybe widen your scope for what makes it good or bad?

For example, here is a reading that I could get behind: since Inisherin vaguely means "island of Ireland," it's fair enough to say that it's a stand-in for Ireland, which makes Ireland itself a stand-in for the rest of the world, and the civil war simply a representative of wider troubles.

Not an attack on you or anything, I appreciate your thoughts on this, i'm just trying to work out my own.

Well to simplifier further it was pro and anti treaty (and partition even if that had already been decided by the Brits in 1920). Still not a pointless falling out between friends.

As an aside I really like the word allegory but prefer the word alliteration.


Edit: the take home message is if the Brits had of left us alone Colm would still have all his fingers.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

When he cuts his fingers off, like? Yeah gross. Gory as hell.

Or the bit when he takes a satirical tour through hell and he becomes Dante Alighieri.

 

[magicbastarder]

As an aside I really like the word allegory but prefer the word alliteration.

you like all words, clearly.

 

[Space]

you like all words, clearly.

Almost all words

 

[Deadmanposting]

This is from someone I know and respect

Their story is difficult to follow because the director is trying to tie the opposing civil war sides... Gleeson is the anti/treaty IRA, petulant, childish, moody, unreasonable and prone to violence, Farrell is the pro side, steady, practical and boring in the eyes of many, he cant understand why his friend (Sinn Fein) has sold him out and turned their back on him.

I took the Gard to be the Crown, and they represented the church through the priest, the church took the pro treaty side
they did a couple of things really nice, when the Gard/Crown knocks down Farrell and Glesson helps him, its the 1922 general election and the Sinn Fein pact, were de valera a collins agreed to stand together and not oppose each other, but they didnt like it, hence the silence. The death of the donkey is the IRA assasination of TD Sean Hales at the gates of the Dail. This is what pushed the pro treaty side over the edge and they assasinated 77 IRA prisoners in response. Hence Farrell burning down Gleesons house

That's how he experienced it

It wasn't that for me tho

 

[Lili Marlene]

I probably need to watch it again, but for me it was "about" Ireland's relationship to its artists.

Spoiler: SPOILER

The artists hack pieces off themselves to create their beautiful art and then hurl it back at the rest of Ireland, who respond in a pretty shocked way, why are they saying this about us? We used to be mates.

The artist gets all sorts of plaudits from people abroad, who want to study with and learn from the artist, but for all that it does nothing for those back home who are busy killing themselves, leaving in disgust, and, when they can't get the artist to be nice, burning down the artist's house/reputation in petty revenge. It's a pretty negative view of the whole thing, but i'm fairly negative about Ireland so, yeah.

I suppose i'm deliberately leaving a lot of space for interpretation (what's with the old woman? or the donkey? etc.) because I really don't enjoy allegorical interpretations of stuff where x is a direct stand-in for y, I like a good messy metaphor.

 

[egg_]

Hard to know if you're being serious with the above, but either way it made me lol