killing time
by Douglas Messerli
Martin McDonagh (screenwriter and director) In
Bruges / 2008
Martin McDonagh's 2008 film, In Bruges,
is a movie that tries so hard to be likeable that it seems almost mean-spirited
to say anything else. By combining a witty and tough dialogue, dangerously
petty criminals who are tender at heart, and story that walks a tightrope
between a bloodbath and a tale of impossible love, the film pleads for its
audience to find some kind of center with which to hold on.
Ray (a likeable Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) have just blundered in a hit, intentionally killing a priest their boss Harry Waters (Ralph Fiennes) has ordered dead, but also unintentionally killing a small child as the bullet passes through the priest's body.
Together
this unlikely duo are sent out of town to the Flemish city of Bruges, until
things cool down. Ken, who has apparently been in the business for some years,
is a slightly sophisticated and curious gay man, who is delighted to get the
opportunity to see the beautiful "Venice of the North," while Ray,
who is the one who accidentally killed the boy, is a course and most definitely
heterosexual, undereducated Dubliner who has no patience for touring and even
less time for Bruges:
“There's a Christmas tree somewhere in London
with a bunch of presents underneath it that'll never be opened. And I thought,
if I survive all this, I'd go to that house, apologize to the mother there, and
accept whatever punishment she chose for me. Prison...death...don't matter.
Because at least in prison and at least in death, you know, I wouldn't be in
fuckin' Bruges. But then, like a flash, it came to me. And I realized, fuck
man, maybe that's what hell is: the entire rest of eternity spent in fuckin' Bruges.
And I really really hoped I wouldn't die. I really really hoped I wouldn't die.
Holed up in one room with Ken.”
Ray is a time bomb ready to explode, and does
fizzle, at least, several times, punching out a Canadian couple who complain
about his and his lady companion's cigarettes, and, later, shooting out the eye
of his girlfriend's cohort in crime—she picks up men after which her boyfriend
shows up to rob them.
There
are a lot of absurd subplots, one about a movie being shot throughout the city
with a dwarf (Jordan Prentice) as the lead—apparently Ray is fascinated by what
he calls "midgets"— and other extraneous encounters. The important
thing, however, is that a strange rapport develops between the two criminals,
Ken and Ray, as
Despite
his tough-guy demeanor, Ray is truly haunted by his act, unable to get it out
of his head, and is seriously guilt-ridden, conditions which Ken tries to
ameliorate without success. By the time Ken hears from Harry that he must kill
Ray, he discovers Ray holding a gun to his own head, about to commit suicide.
Ken,
who in some senses has also come to love Ray, saves his ridiculous friend’s
life, and sends him off by train to any other European town so that Ray can
start over again, while Ken will be left to face the consequences.
The consequences begin with Harry arriving in
Bruges, at first cloaked in a sort of gentlemanly regard between himself and
Ken before quickly turning murderous, as Harry shoots out Ken's knees. Discovering
that Ray has been returned to Bruges by the police for the incident with the
Canadian couple, he runs from the tower into the square intending to kill Ray
himself. To warn Ray, Harry jumps from the tower, sacrificing his own life for
that of his friend-become almost a son.
For
a brief time, the film switches to an action-adventure tale, as Harry chases
Ray down the narrow, cobblestone Bruges streets. Returning to his hotel, Ray
collects his gun, and jumps from the window into a moving canal boat below,
Harry at the chase. Harry's final shot goes through Ray's body, hitting and
killing the dwarf, which Harry believes is a child. A man of deep conviction if
not of moral values, Harry turns the gun upon himself. Two murders of children
are beyond salvation!
We
end the film not knowing whether or not Ray has survived, but his voice
pleading for his life, seems to suggest that he lived through the ordeal. The
question is, which Ray? The murderous, crazy one? The boyishly good man at
heart? The slightly clever conman? The drunken and drugged out lunatic?
The
problem with nearly every figure in this film is that they have no center—as
well as no place in which to exist. Ray's disdain of Bruges—as beautiful as the
city obviously is—seems justified. Why "In Bruges?" You can almost
hear McDonagh say, as might Harry, "Cause I'd like to fuckin' go there;
it's a kind of fantasyland."
But
so too is his film a kind of garish fantasy world where no real human being
dare show up. All are types, figures shifting in and out of various situations
and set pieces, drifting always between the humorous and the downright ugly.
Who could ever believe characters who converse as follows?:
RAY: What am I gonna do, Ken? What am I gonna
do?
KEN: Just keep movin', keep movin'. Try not
think about it.
Learn a new language, maybe?
RAY: Sure. I can hardly do English. [Pause]
RAY: That's one thing I like about Europe,
though. You don't have
to learn any of their languages.
From a sort of conscience-ridden, even it
sentimental pondering, we quickly jump to the kind of advice one might receive
on a cozy talk show, then on to a self-aware joke that seems incompatible with
Ray's previous behavior, straight to the beat (1-2-3) before the punch line, a
stale joke about the loss of European countries' identities, all in a few short
sentences and interjections!
McDonagh
seems unable to keep any one character in his mind for more than a few lines,
so that ultimately we lose all possibility of belief in anything but the
writer's whims. Next time I go to Bruges, it will be alone!
Los Angeles, April 28, 2011
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2011).
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