Martin McDonagh, Colin Farrell & Brendan Gleeson On Reuniting For ‘The Banshees Of Inisherin’ — Venice
Martin McDonagh is back on the Lido where he’s set to debut his latest film The Banshees of Inisherin, the first film he’s produced in his home country Ireland.
Discussing his return to the country during a press conference in Venice Monday, McDonagh said: “To do something in Ireland was majestic, especially the west of Ireland was a dream of mine. The whole area where we filmed was where I went back to when I was a kid to visit relatives. It’s where my dad’s from.”
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Set in 1923 on the fictional island of Inisherin, the film follows lifelong friends Pádraic and Colm, who find themselves at an impasse when Colm unexpectedly puts an end to their friendship. A stunned Pádraic, aided by his sister Siobhán and troubled young islander Dominic, endeavors to repair the relationship, refusing to take no for an answer. But Pádraic’s repeated efforts only strengthen his former friend’s resolve and when Colm delivers a desperate ultimatum, events swiftly escalate, with shocking consequences.
The film marks the second time Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson have worked with McDonagh following 2008’s In Bruges. According to both Farrell and Gleeson, who were also in attendance at the press conference, the reunion was inevitable.
“I can’t imagine ever passing on anything he writes because he’s such an extraordinary writer and I’m always so deeply moved emotionally and psychologically by the worlds he creates and the characters that he designs,” Farrell said of McDonagh.
Gleeson added that his time working on In Bruges with McDonagh and Farrell was both “creative and personally invigorating” and he had always hoped to recreate it on a second project.
The Banshees of Inisherin, like in In Bruges, is largely a two-hander between Farrell and Gleeson with large sections of fast-paced and layered dialogue, which Gleeson said provided a welcome opportunity to explore the nature of male relationships.
“I’m glad to see male friendship as something valuable at the moment when the readjustment of everyone’s relationships with everybody is under reconsideration,” he said. “The valuing of male friendship against a bromance to me is very deep and pertinent right now.”
Also on the subject of the film’s interpersonal relationships, Farrell spoke at length about how he believes the flick can act as a counter to today’s world, which he described as the “informational age” that “takes us away from the intimacy that’s required and interests that are needed to exist.”
“When push comes to shove we will always return to good chats. It’s like the people who don’t believe in God until they’ve overdosed on a drug,” he said.
“Conversation, sharing thoughts and feelings with each other. It’s a world that is so quick to pull the trigger of judgment on each other, we’re so quick to cancel now with cancel culture and all these things. But to actually have discourse, to have conversation and exchange ideas in a way that is as open to your opinion being changed as it is to being shared is a gorgeous thing. I don’t think that’ll ever die even if it’s been supplanted a little by technology.”
Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan also star in the film which is from Searchlight Pictures and Film 4, in association with TSG Entertainment, and produced by Blueprint Pictures. It hits theaters on October 21.
Venice runs from August 31-September 10.
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