“In Bruges” (2008)
In retrospective praise 15 years on.
It’s been fifteen years since London born filmmaker Martin McDonagh released this, his debut feature length film, and fifteen years since I first watched this and didn’t completely appreciate it. The single reservation I had all those years ago still stands, in that it’s a film of two distinct halves and when Ralph Fiennes arrives amid a scattergun of swear words and a terrible Cockney accent, it rather throws me out of a film that up until that point I admire and love tremendously. A decade and a half later my admiration for this film has grown exponentially and perhaps with the passage of time I now better understand that Ralph Fiennes character is deliberately and thoroughly unlikeable, the horrible bad guy to our two gun toting anti-heroes, and on a re-watch recently I now place In Bruges far higher in the four genuine twisted masterpieces released by McDonagh to date.
With his second film and follow up Seven Psychopaths from 2012 scheduled for another of my in-famous re-watches soon, the main reason I finally revisited his debut film here was due in the main to my unabashed love I instantly had for last year’s Oscar nominated The Banshees of Inisherin. Whilst it failed to garner a single win from its nine (nine!) nominations I felt this unfair on the re-teaming of its central stars Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, and the first time they collaborated together with director McDonagh since this film in 2008. I also wanted to re-watch and reappraise this film as I also have more than a soft spot for the acting talents of Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell, Oscar winners both in McDonagh’s third film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Seven Oscar nominations and two wins in 2018, this genuine masterpiece currently resides at 166th on the www.imdb.com top 250 films of all time, with Trainspotting and The Bridge on the River Kwai for company. Should you have missed these incredible films, here are my spoiler free appreciations:
The immediate beauty of this film is also the first readily apparent use of stark and deeply black comedy. Whilst the medieval city with it’s many centuries of history and canals are constantly and beautifully depicted, it’s anything but the “shithole” described by “Ray” (Colin Farrell). Ordered to lay low after their last job, he and fellow hitman for hire “Ken” (Brendan Gleeson) arrive in the Belgian city in a busy pre Christmas period and whilst the senior of the two in this oddest of twisted old married couples wishes to explore their historical surroundings “Can you at least reserve judgement until after you get off the train?”, his younger accomplice is agitated, on edge and on the precipice of utter desperation and desolation.
With Ken relaxed and at peace with his surroundings and taking in the splendour of a pre Christmas Bruges, the older and senior of the two is perfectly at home in his enforced holiday from England. Ray, on the other hand, is anything but and it isn’t just the unfamiliar city or the waiting around for their next job that irks him. “The Boy” has a devilry about him but this is all a front for the hurt that lurks inside him and underneath the façade that hides a deep haunting feeling that he’s in purgatory and unsure which way to turn. Conflicted, awkwardly inappropriate, at times obnoxious, racist, suicidal even, Ray is a man child desperately spinning out of control and without the reassurance of his older, wiser and more controlled partner, anything, and everything is possible, even in a beautiful city pre the festivities of yet another joyous Christmas. Signal the entrance of his, and their, repugnant out of control Boss from London, and anything and everything isn’t only possible, but bloodily guaranteed.
Supported by the beautiful Clemence Poesy as a Dutch show runner and production assistant on a film being shot in the city and Jordan Prentice as one of the film’s actors, Carter Burwell’s beautiful and at times mournful piano score and the pin prick cinematography from Eigil Bryld, director McDonagh wraps all of these key components together into a stunning film that I now have a new found and thoroughly deserved appreciation of.
Numerous scenes stand out whether they be the earliest of scenic introductions to Bruges itself or the latter half scenes of the city largely at night, the city square and imposing bell tower or the awkwardly, blackly funny evening with a huge mound of cocaine, alcohol, anxiety, recriminations, anger, desperation and all to the tune and occasional backdrop of the American rock band The Strokes.
Fifteen years on, I have a very real and new found loving appreciation for In Bruges and here’s to Martin McDonagh making it five absolute gems in a row with his next cinematic release.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 250 blog articles (with 500+ individual film reviews) within my film library from which to choose:
