POOFS IN BRUGHES

or, Fucking dwarfs in Belgium?

A Review of In Bruges

Martin McDonagh’s reasons for setting his self-directed (and written) film In Bruges, in Bruges, is unclear. It may have to do with the fact that a beautiful picture will emerge wherever a camera is pointed. Cinematographer Eigil Bryld serves him well in virtually every frame. Harry (Ralph Fiennes – having a great time playing Michael Caine), an English criminal ‘boss’, and the only remotely honourable character in the script, wanted ‘Ray’ (Colin Farrell) to have a pleasant time. Harry had enjoyed a stay there when he was Ray’s age.

Ray’s fellow ‘hit man’ the more experienced ‘Ken’ (Brendan Gleeson) is ordered to kill him. Ray had made a mess of his first (and only) job. He killed a child, in the course of killing a (presumably Roman Catholic) priest (a criminally wasted Ciar n Hinds). Why a priest? Why in the confession box? Why not in his presbytery (dwelling place)? Ray and Ken are Irish (of the genus ‘murdering Paddy’) but as a great deal of the dialogue consists of ‘effin’n'blindin” it hardly mattered.

They find an ‘overweight’ American family comical. And say Americans are, and the US is, obnoxious. That is not the standard Irish view. There is no standard Irish view of Belgium. But few regard it as ‘boring’. Both notions are standard among the Radio 4-listening classes of middle England.

The above notions are expressed by the sulkily immature Ray. The elder Ken is a happy tourist, culture-vulture even. Mr. McDonagh’s screenplay is very neat. It tells a tale very well, and every loose end is tied up at the end of the action. But a deal of the action is unconvincing. It probably looked well on paper but translated onto celluloid it’s a bit thin. Ray and Ken’s landlady finds their (quite enormous) guns in a sideboard. She leaves them there. A boring Belgian bourgeoise would, surely, inform the police, or at least confront the men about such hardware. A rather intellectual, and vaguely racist, American dwarf becomes part of the action. He is appearing in a film within the film. I am not sure if his stature is supposed to be inherently funny. The London audience I shared the cinema with certainly thought so.

The film takes itself rather seriously. Ken is seen tramping the misty, (Christmas period) streets of Bruges to the accompaniment of Der Leiermann, the spooky last song in Schubert’s Winterreise (winter journey) song-cycle. It is simultaneously pretentiouSeand cheesy. No reason is given for the two men’s avocation. There is a vague implication that Ken’s wife was shot dead in a pub (Ray calls him a ‘culchie’*). But shooting matches are not a characteristic of Irish country pubs. (Not even in the ‘wee black North’). And it hardly explains how he became a ‘hit man’ ‘ such jobs are not advertised in the Irish Times ‘ or even Andersonstown News or Shankill Bulletin. The recruitment of the immature, emotive, Ray is even more mysterious. The action ends with a lot of corpses. The implied ‘moral’ is to the effect that this violence is mindless. But it wasn’t ‘mindless’. It was, on Harry’s part, about acquiring money fast, and (relatively) easy.

A minor mystery of the script is the consistent use of ‘gay’ and abusive variations on it, ‘poof’ and so on, to describe anybody even remotely not a ” well ” the term ‘gabshite’ comes to mind. Harry deems the fact that one minor character got his eye shot out with a blank cartridge to be a pathetic piece of poovery. (The beautiful Brandon Lee famously got killed on the set of The Crow by a blank cartridge). This matter was not even mentioned by ‘proper’ ‘broadsheet’ / ‘compact’ critics ‘ but it is a reason why we suggest readers keep their entry-price money in their pocketSeand wait till this pops up on late-night telly. Then you can ogle Colin Farrell to your heart’s content.

Se n McGouran

* ‘Culchie’ – Irish urbanite’s word for a country-dweller.