I have (earlier and elsewhere) complained, that the cinematic attic is far too stuff-stocked with serial killers; and that there should be a rule, that no more movies are to be made upon this them, until at least one movie shall have been shown, focusing on: (1) a plumber (2) an electrician (3) an algebraic-topologist (4) an algebraic-geometer (5) a point-set topologists with kind of a hang-up for hamsters ... That a serial meta-killer should polish all of the offenders off, is an elegant solution.
So anyway -- rather than say one thing more about "7 Psychopaths", which I haven't seen,
here is the meta-meta-post about "In Bruges" ...
~ ~ ~
If you liked “In Bruges”, you’ll like “The Guard”.
In fact, if you liked “In Bruges”, you might feel that you’ve already seen
“The Guard”. Both star Brendan Gleeson at his baffling best. Each
has, on the periphery, a mesmerizing, casual killer (wasting his own
considerable intelligence), played in the first film by Ralph Fiennes,
in the second by Mark Strong. The plots have a certain funhouse-mirror
resemblance. And the directors of both are brothers -- with
directorial flourishes reminiscent of that other meta-ironic
brother-act, the Coens.
So,
by Duality [this is a math joke], I need only review one of them; it
applies to the other mutatis mutandis. Eenie meenie … Okay, “In
Bruges”.
~ ~ ~
“In Bruges” got mixed reviews.
“an amusing trifle from the potty-mouthed playwright Martin McDonagh” (NYTimes)
Herewith, an unmixed one.
[No summary, though: Just see it. These notes are basically aimed at folks who have seen it and mulled it over.]
*
But first -- a sort of warm-up exercise.
Q:
Neither main character looks, talks, or acts, anything like our idea
of a professional killer-for-hire. So what -- is the director simply
Casting Against Stereotype here, as when the screen teems with Black
physicists, female engineers, whores-with-a-heart-of-gold [*], and so
forth?
[*
Some of which have now been so often recycled, that they are virtually
new meta-stereotypes in their own right; and to buck the trend,
directors will have to come up with Mexican physicists, female Trekkies,
and whores-with-dyslexia…]
A: …
Extra credit:
QQ: Why is Ralph Fiennes’ character called ‘Harry’?
*
Critics
clucked in particular at one scene, on the surface shocking -- the
contract killing of a priest in the confessional, by the confessor
himself, and fatal collateral damage to a child (the wound is briefly
shown). And indeed, it is just this sort of thing, blandly described,
which probably contributed to keeping me away from the theatres when
this film came out: I’m sick of violence and torture and gore. But the
scene is, in one sense, even worse
than that, in that it lacks even so much as the power to really shock.
There is no depth of build-up; it’s just this movie thing. The shot
child -- to which image critics have objected -- looks like a doll,
and keels over like one. Had the scene ended there, it would have been
cheap: with the power to disgust, but without the power to move.
But then we see the little list of his sins, which the child awaiting
the Rite of Reconciliation has carefully noted, lest he forget. Ah!
and there the dam breaks. The blood is washed with the hot salt tears.
As the movie proceeds, you come to respect the utterly perfunctory presentation of that scene. The point was of course not to make our skin crawl with horror at a detailed depiction of etc etc; we already know
that that is bad. The point is rather: How do we live with our
conscience. That any critic could have taken that scene as basically
exploitative -- in the way most violent scenes in most movies in fact
are -- shows merely a lack of critical perception.
*
The
anti-American jokes do not offend me. They are, to be sure, not very
inventive, and they aim at soft targets. For all that, they are not
only permissible, but they even in some cases say what needs to be
said, since soon it may be politically impossible to say such things
here, on this speech-deprived side of the Atlantic. As, towered-over
by tourists, our Irishmen alludes to an American elephant-in-the-room:
the fact that so many of us now resemble elephants. Our
self-awareness on this score naturally fades with the advance of years
and of surrounding pounds. It is only when we see ourselves in the
mirror of Europe, or (even moreso) of Japan, that we may suddenly grasp
that -- like Dorian Gray degenerating horribly in the unseen portrait
-- we have come routinely to resemble what, in an earlier time, would
have appeared only in cartoonish depictions of the Seven Deadly Sins, as
the hideous figure of Gluttony.
And yet, a judicious respect for the facts, does move me to observe,
anent his wisecrack “That’s for John Lennon, ye Yankee f*cking c*nt” (as
he decks the supposed Yank): that the only reason that St. John of
Liverpool was even in a position to be martyred in Manhattan -- was that he had f*ckin’ abandoned merry olde England, innit? eh? ye bleedin’ British arsehole get!!!
*
That wonderful scene in the restaurant.
The key dialogue:
She: So what do you do, Raymond?
He: I… shoot people for money.
She (indulgently, with a lilt, as though playing along): What kinds of people?
He: Priests… children… Y’know, the usual.
She: Is there a lot of money to be made in that line of business?
He: There is in priests; there isn’t in children. -- So what do you do, Chloe?
She: I sell cocaine and heroin to Belgian film crews.
It
must be understood that, the way these lines are delivered, there is
neither bravado, nor despair, nor posturing, nor (or not wholly)
cynicism… The only way I can think to contextualize such lines is
against the background of the Bosch paintings witnessed earlier: We
are in the final days, God sees straight through us, and any dissembling
is just a f*cking waste of time. It is as though each is at
Confession, with the Lord himself. (Or perhaps more accurately, at the
Naked Lunch as Burroughs defined it, "when each can see what is at the
end of everybody's fork".) -- This is a clear dark state of mind; dark
indeed, yet preferable to the preening of the talkshows.
There
follows then the problematic scene in which the girlfriend of the
obnoxious Yank grabs a bottle to brain Raymond, and he decks her. To
Chloe, he is defensive about this.
Yet
again we are moved to notice a level above the pedestrian: For in
grabbing that bottle as a lethal instrument, she abandoned -- for
herself, and by implication, for womankind -- that perch and that
position by grace of which alone Sir Lancelot’s quest made any
sense. A move made lightly, but full of gravity. Ray’s quick
counter-punch of self-defense is understandable (while deplorable) in
Walmartian contemporary terms; yet from the vantage from which we are
now viewing, better perhaps he should have seized that sword, wherewith
we once in higher times did slay the Saracen: and with all
deliberation, and a prefatory prayer (“For thee, Guinevere!”) --
severed her wretched head from the parent body.
*
The playground scene. The very cinematography made me gasp.
Clearly something in memory… in fact, rather to my surprise, I managed
quickly to retrieve one remembered image that somewhat resembles it.
Yet there seems to be more…
In any event:
… creeping up on Raymond, silently, from behind, with a silencer, at
the brink of carrying out -- reluctantly, but resolutely -- his orders
to kill this young man --- ----- yet, seeing suddenly that Raymond is
about to kill himself, shouts out: “DON’T……!!!!”
A scene perfectly comprehensible from the standpoint of Christian
mysticism; but baffling (or, stupidly, comic) to anyone else, I would
imagine.
*
You have three or four different pretty-good movies, none of which In Bruges quite adds up to be. (Slate)
Right;
it doesn’t add up -- to add up, things have to be linear, like a column
of figures. Our own lives do not add up, because they are not
pre-scripted: They cannot be pre-scripted, owing to God’s gift to us of
Free Will.
So it doesn’t add up: but, Lord!, does it ever multiply!
*
… A: The movie is not about hit-men. In principle, they could have been stated to be astronauts, or circus clowns.
The
movie is about us. We are sinners, but that is difficult for many of
us to grasp; so, making them hit-men is like WRITING IN BRIGHT CRAYON,
VERY LARGE.
…
AA: ‘Old Harry’ is a traditional name for the Devil. The Devil is
just what Harry is. (Or rather -- it develops -- at first seems.)
Why did Harry strike me (and one reviewer) as embodied Mephistopheles? Just because he’s a bad man? No.
The
way in which Harry reacts to the news that Ken has let Ray go -- much
as the Bishop let Jean Valjean go -- the fury with which he smashes and
smashes and smashes again, the very telephone on which he heard the
news,
in
no way corresponds to any possible reaction, of any actual or any
cinematic crime-boss. Ray, after all, had carried out Harry’s orders,
and by mere accident there had been collateral damage. Ray’s escape, in
itself, will hardly bring down Harry’s empire.
But
the evidence of grace, on Ken’s part, is indeed, to the Devil’s face,
like a flung panful of hot grease. (In the same way I have depicted
similar incidents, in “Murphy: an Introduction”, and “That Tears It”.)
And: Harry wants his victim to be “crucified”; an interesting choice of torments.
*
Q: Why ‘Bruges’? What does it stand for, this… ‘Bruges’?
A:
‘Bruges’ stands for our planet, where you and I have been sent for a
time, to cool our heels. A place where, perhaps, we might figure things
out; and -- God grant it -- act as honorably as does Ken. (Btw: Ken: ‘ken’ -- knowledge. Ray: as in, ‘ray of hope’.)
*
The
importance of “proof”, in mathematics, is greatly overrated. In
public, we laud it, because we suppose it may have a calming influence
on the populace, and because the real root of mathematics (its
transcendent reality, and its revelation by… Revelation) is just too
hot to handle, in this secular world. -- Which is not to say that a
mathematician receives his purported revelations (guesses, hunches,
insights) uncritically. If a mathematical insight is true, --and, more
important, if it is any good
-- it is a key which will unlock many a treasure-chest. (A proof, one
hopes, for decorum’s sake, may follow eventually later. But no
mathematician cares all that much about proof per se. We care about truth. Proof is just something to have at the ready when they audit your books.).
So -- do we have a key here, that unlocks scene after scene? Scenes
which, in a Christian perspective, are as clear as a Christmas
pantomime; and which, without this key, seem almost the Theatre of the
Absurd?
Uhhh… No, actually. My mistake.
The
figure of Harry is consistent with that of Mephistopheles, up to a
point; but then, by the time of the night-scene in the central square
beneath the bell-tower, everything swings round, so that now all three
protagonists are Knights, and Men of Honor, in their own sadly sharply
fallen way.
No
genre with which I am familiar, really encompasses the ending. The
closest comparison might be with “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”,
only: with all three being
alike good, and bad, and ugly (like thee; like me). (Also, the
hotelière turns suddenly into Joan of Arc; and echoes the brave
hard-bitten female characters of that Mexican Western film.)
It was at that café table, in the central square, that I first realized, that my unifying interpretation was falling apart.
The first alarm was when the crime boss said, I can
change: an awfully touchy-feeling ting for a crime-boss to say. (And
yet and yet… here too it does hook in, to a favorite Murphy motif, that the Devil may repent and be saved. ….)
My initial take was briefly redeemed by Ken’s quipping: Yeh, change
to an even bigger koont than you are now! But then, when Ken leads
them to the bell tower, that he may be slain in peace -- slain like a
lamb -- and speaks to Harry in such tones of measured respect… We are
in a different movie, from what I had thought.
The
whole movie, as a somewhat incoherent whole, might be compared to a
Bosch canvas, such as that which our protagonists contemplated in the
course of their travels. Even with the profoundest knowledge of the
religion and history of the period… there is much that resides only in
the painter’s head.
Contrast a canvas which, a first but a blur, becomes completely coherent, once one possesses the key.
Such are those in which a host of incident is depicted, every whichway,
and which only a knowledge of the Bible narrative -- plus medieval and
Renaissance conventions -- can resolve into sense. (One example, if
memory serves, is the wall-filling fresco, at the opposite end of the
room from The Last Supper). Here the Crucifiction, the Deposition, the
Resurrection, are all depicted in one single scene, like a comic strip
without a panel. There stands a man in blue (The One Whom Jesus
Loved) at the foot of the Cross; and there, a few inches away, kneels a
man in blue (the very same!) wrapping our Lord in a shroud. And
there-- to the side -- an older figure, girt with enormous keys: the
symbol of St Peter, thus signalized, for a largely illiterate audience,
in the absence of captions…
But this movie is a Bosch canvas. This image, that grotesque, might
evoke some echo: but as a whole, the painting just spills out from the
privacy of the painter’s own wild wide head.
*
Consider again that conversation during the dinner date.
One obvious way to take it, is as a simple flouting, for its own sake,
of the expectations and conventions, of normal society. In short:
flip, and hip. (That is the interpretation which leads down to Hell.)
We have seen such -- many such. Maidstone; Buckaroo Bonzai; anything with the Rat Pack in it.
But the interaction in question -- like (with one exception to be noted) all
the interactions in the film -- are not like that. The characters are
utterly candid, one with another; and, given that some of them aim to
gun down others, remarkably congenial. The sense that emanates from
all these proceedings is that these characters genuinely relish one another’s company,
and are delighted to find themselves sharing the same screen. When
Harry finally comes to Bruges to, well, kill Ken, among other things,
Ken waits for him in the public square, relishing a particular golden
and delicious-looking beer. Just a spot of something bubbly with your
old pal before he bumps you off. (And once again, there is a
parallel in Murphyland, towards the end of “That Tears It”, the scene
with the beer.) There is no self-pity in this, no glum resignation. It
is just -- such a pleasure, and an honor, to be a fellow-man to one’s
fellow men, that, well, if the dice so rolls that one of you needs to
bump off the other, hey, we can still be friends. The spirit of sheer
good feeling (and this, in a film which, in printed summary, sounds
like the most depressing thing imaginable) is ultimately itself a
cinematic feat; and, morally, something of a miracle. Not a milieu
with which we are most of us familiar. Again I recur, tentatively,
to the knights of the Round Table. They move against a stylized
background, and in broad accordance with certain Christian assumptions:
but these do not exhaust their world. (I have read and thought far
too little of this, to proceed further. Project for the next
opportunity: read-through the legends of the Grail.)
This achievement is wonderful for its own sake: but is also of quite
practical importance to the plot. When Ken sacrifices his own life to
save -- well, merely to have a shot at
saving Ray’s, a fellow with whom he’d been not even particularly close
friends, and whose inclinations clashed with Ken’s own across the board
-- we take it as a matter of course: Well of course a bloke would do that for a bloke, wouldn’t you?
It also has the side benefit that the two characters who decidedly do not
fit into this atmosphere of bonhomie -- the testy Canuck and the
boyfriend Belgian -- acquire enormous hilarity as comic characters, out
of place in their surroundings, like the Demon King in a panto.
Side-note:
It says something significant about the general level of acting in this
day, that a first-time film-director could bring something like that
off.
First, a semantic point. The term “good acting” (applied to the actors
in a given film) is ambiguous between a collective and a distributive
reading. The extreme of the collective interpretation is ensemble
acting, where no one actor stands out ; in sports, Asian acrobatic
teams, or Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance.
The opposite would be All-Star teams, always a disappointing summation
of the parts. Or Hollywood extravaganzas that used to be the norm,
with nothing but marquee names, each strutting, with no chemistry
between them, each visibly eager to rush off to their individual
superstar trailers, to pout and preen before the make-up mirrors…
The good acting here is closer to the former and poles apart from the
latter, yet… it is neither; for the intense individuality of each is
not subordinated to anything at all. The result is not so much an
‘ensemble’, as a very resurrected body of actors. (And if that sounds mystical, it is meant to.)
*
Well. It doesn’t add up; but it adds, and keeps adding. Poetry piles upon poetry; and now I must cease to cite.
And
yes: It may be possible, so to take in this film, that it is “an
amusing trifle”, “potty-mouthed”: much as some retarded janitor,
sweeping up after Mass, and espying the undistributed Host, might chomp
down on it as upon Cheez-Doodles ® -- and then spit it out, as lacking
sufficient grease and salt…
And
so: A final, hearty round of applause, for all these good lads --
hit-men and hôtelières and midgets and all! Here’s hoping to meet you
in the Resurrected Winebar!
