Friday, August 15, 2008

Flematic

(In which your author once again gets round to watching a film that everyone else saw about six months ago.)

In Bruges (Dir: Martin McDonagh, 2008) is the story of two Irish hitmen (Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell) who are ordered by their boss (Ralph Fiennes) to lie low in the medieval Belgian city after a job goes hideously wrong.

Well, that's the plot. In fact, In Bruges is what would happen if Quentin Tarantino directed a spin-off of Father Ted, written by Harold Pinter. To take it further, we could turn the whole thing into a pie chart: two-fifths Pulp Fiction, a quarter The Dumb Waiter, and whatever's left given over to a bizarre parallel universe where Father Dougal gets off with that French totty from Harry Potter. No, we'll need to redo those proportions; leave a few slivers of the pie for Don't Look Now, the obnoxious dwarf from Living in Oblivion, and the certain knowledge that, if snow starts to fall on cobbles, there'll be blood soaking into it by the time the end credits roll. And a liberal dose of homophobic joshing which was, um, actually quite amusing. Sorry about that.

Bugger. Forgot Waiting for Godot. That too.

And Lost in Translation and Sexy Beast. Maybe. A bit.

And then, sometimes I wonder if spotting the references, overt and subconscious, just gets in the way. I mean, strip out Pinter and Beckett and all, and you've got a rather good little film, and it's not about what Martin McDonagh read when he was a teenager, it's about men and violence and guilt and redemption.

But isn't everything?

5 comments:

Rosie said...

i thought it was awful shite.

9/10ths Full of Penguins said...

Great! The idea of film influence pie charts!! I think I will apply some thoughtification to that and do a post myself....

amyonymous said...

how appropriate that someone whose screen name is "9/10ths full of penguins" (i adore this name) is thrilled with the idea of pie chart percentages for films!

too mathematical for me although this was the most oblique film review i've ever read. i either have no idea what the film is about, or i have an excellent idea of it. just can't figure out which.

Garth said...

So you enjoyed it then?

Tim F said...

That's the sort of review that ends up on Chinese bootleg DVDs, Rosie.

Go ahead, 9/10. But make sure they're in pretty colours.

Somewhere in between, Amy.

Pisces, do you yearn for the day when Sight & Sound becomes a single sheet of A4, with three columns, headed "Ace", "Bollocks" and "OK if you're not doing anything else"?