A Beautifully Dark Breath Of Fresh Air

When it comes to British Cinema and its deep history, it’s rather interesting to see just how extensive British films have changed over the many different years and era’s. One particular genre that has been more or less an integral part to not only the development of the British film industry, but also British culture and society is the genre of comedy. British cinema and to some extent British T.V, has always had a rich history of comedy; ranging from the likes of the Carry On flicks to the successful and well known Monty Python and finally through to the era of Richard Curtis’s Romantic fairy-tales of the 90’s. In recent years, Black/Dark comedy in particular, is a sub-genre that has been predominantly used in British comedy in recent years and has for the majority of the time, succeeded. The noticeable candidates that represent this type of genre are films like Sightseers, In the Loop, A Long Way Down and Filth; films that do typically have dark and serious motifs around which are meant to be taken seriously, but are morphed to suit a more witty and humorous outlook. One of the films that takes those ideas and applies them in a successful manner is Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges. Without doubt, In Bruges definitely reaches near the top of the list in terms of the best British Black comedies to watch with it’s variety of different high-end acting performances, it’s production design which shows off Bruges to be a ‘fairy-tale’ and beautiful place, and of course it’s humour instantaneously throws political correctness out of the window with fat American tourists and racist midgets bearing the brunt of the banter. 

London based hit-men Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are told by their boss Harry Waters (Ralph Fiennes) to lay low in Bruges, In Belgium, for up to two weeks following their latest job in a London church. While they wait to hear from Harry for further instructions, Ken, following Harry’s advice, takes in the sights this medieval city with great anticipation. But the charms of Bruges are lost on the simple-minded Ray, who is not only moody over the prospect of staying in a place that he grudgingly hates so much, but is someone that is already despondent over his first hit-job which involved him accidentally killing an innocent bystander. However, things change for Ray when he meets Chloe (Clemence Poesy) who is part of a film crew who secretly sells drugs on the local set of a film which features Jimmy, an American dwarf. By meeting Chloe, Ray’s whole world invites him to a place which now features him having fights with Canadians, awkwardly standing off against Eirik, a local thief, and partaking in drugs with the racist American midget. Meanwhile Harry, who has a stringent code of principles, gives Ken some special orders to take care of. But when Ken can’t carry out the order that Harry sent out due to some emotional attachment, events start to unfold as Harry himself attends to finish off the job leaving both Ken and Ray in a sticky situation in this fairy-tale wonderland that is Bruges… it’s in Belgium. 

You wouldn’t think there would be that much talking points surrounding a Dark comedy, but In Bruges for sure has interesting cinematic aspects going for it. For my personal viewing of the film, there are in fact two main interesting ideas to discuss; one of those ideas has to be what Mcdonagh has taken influence by in making this piece. Don’t get me wrong, I will be talking about the humour, the acting and the other techniques that In Bruges uses, but one of the important things that I wanted to get off my chest for this film is the different references to Directors and films McDonagh has potentially taken inspiration, more specifically, how he’s borrowed quirks off of Quentin Tarantino. If I had to describe McDonagh’s In Bruges and his other works like Seven Psychopaths for that matter, it would be like watching something that combines Father Ted with Tarantino. In Bruges especially has a lot of elements that remind you of how Tarantino goes about making his film. With Tarantino, he has a tendency in most of his film to construct a serious scene into something that is quirky, slightly over the top  and somewhat funny fashion. There are certain scenes in this humorous film make you think of Tarantino a lot. Take the first scene of In Bruges for example in which Ray is narrating about his first hit-job which slowly cuts to both Ray and Ken bickering about whether Bruges is a “shit hole” or not (scuse my language). For the start of that scene, it’s typically a slow build up that is beautiful and serious all at the same time with the montage of the night scenes of Bruges which radically switches into something that you would see in a Tarantino film with the slow transition of Ray and Ken bickering to one another about Bruges. The other aspect that I got from this film that I like to think McDonagh took as a reference, is how the narrative in some way, feels very much like a contemporary Alice and Wonderland story. With Alice in Wonderland, it’s tale that centres around a young girl who ‘falls’ down the rabbit hole and explores Wonderland that has a lot of different and strange characters. With In Bruges, it’s very much the same with the character of Ray as he’s stuck in a place that he’s not really fond off mostly throughout the film. Even in his opening narration, Ray even mentions how he didn’t know where Bruges even was. Like Alice as well, Ray along his endeavours in Bruges meets with a variety of different people and kind of bad for Ray. Sure he meets up with Chloe, but ultimately, he interacts with a lot of bad apples in the forms of an annoying Canadian couple, a sensitive local thief and a racist American dwarf.

Since this is a Dark comedy, we do indeed have to judge it’s humour since it is a comedy and if it’s not funny a lot of the times, then I consider that as I failure. Don’t get me wrong, I think comedy is one of the hardest genres to write about since it’s got to have a clever script that everyone gets and can laugh about, but for a comedy film to work, you know it has to be funny. Thankfully with this piece of work, the banter goes to leaps and bounds as it perfectly has that nice blend of bold and blatant slapstick with the more subtle jokes that crop now and then. The blatant foul language that all the characters at one time or another use and the camera movement which also contribute to the laughter even when no dialogue is spoken, creates a perfect Dark comedy experience. The one cinematic factor however that makes In Bruges one of the better British comedy films to watch, are the acting performances and how they deliver that humour. When you watch any comedy film whether it was made in Hollywood, Britain or anywhere else, one of the crucial  aspects in making a comedy film is the performance of the central star and making that role as believable as possible. I don’t want to be a hater, but it is mostly the American slapsticks that tend to do this in the wrong fashion as it can for the majority of the time come out as a cheesy waste of time. What I like about In Bruges in terms of the acting is how individually, each character has their funny moments and it’s even better when these characters who are all very much different one another, bounce off each other which feels realistic and funny at the same time. The friendship and the contrast between Gleeson (Ken) and Farrell (Ray) in particular is a delight to witness. The different ideals and personalities that these two characters have whenever they’re together works really well. While at times you have Ken to be portrayed as this nice, friendly wise-guy who throughout the film does help his compatriot, Ray is someone that acts like a spoiled school boy who can’t get his way. Farrell’s delivery of the boyish and witty dialogue and the body-language that furthermore makes him act like naughty school kid is a really good contrast to the rest of the characters and for my money, is one of the better Farrell performances to go and watch. What is impressive to say the least are the introductions of the other characters that come into the fray throughout the duration of the film. One of the better introductions to consider is the character of Harry Waters (Ralph Fiennes) who while he also has his own way of bringing laughter with his anger of smashing the phone or when he’s getting his gun in Bruges, what you have to appreciate about his character is his element of darkness which brings about this uncertainty about the ending of the film; whether we’ll have a happy ending, or a disastrous conclusion which may or may not include a death.

One of cinematic techniques that this film doesn’t get enough credit for is it’s beauty which we can see through the cinematography and the structure that McDonagh has near to perfectly conjured up. While there is no mistaken that In Bruges almost all the time has moments that are very blunt in terms of what goes on in the scenes of the narrative, it does have to be mentioned that there are snippets of beautiful imagery when it comes to the city of Bruges. The first montage shot of Bruges at night time will make you think ‘why haven’t I gone here yet?’. As the character of Harry puts it, ‘it’s a fairytale town, isn’t it? How’s a fairytale town not somebody’s fucking thing?…’. Like with what I mentioned before about the acting performances in Comedies being as realistic and plausible as possible, I think the other film construct that comedy films need is a clear and coherent story that doesn’t bog down on a few sequences. There are occasions where I would be watching a comedy film and I would think ‘they spend too much time on this scene don’t they’. With In Bruges, McDonagh manages to find away to blend the beautiful scenery, the drama of the narrative and the Dark humour all into one cohesive piece. There were no instances throughout that I thought ‘this is boring’. The whole experience of watching this film feels like you’re watching a real comedy show; the jokes/sequences are built up in a way that there always funny and moves onto the next gag relatively quickly.

It’s fair to say that when you look at the array of comedy films that are out there whether they’re relatively recent or something of the past, there are for sure many types of comedy films that appeal to many different types of audiences. the better comedy films however, are the ones that interact with all audiences; audiences which can easily understand the joke and to which never get old re-watching time and time again. The harder comedies to come up with are the ones that feature dark themes and motifs which is understandable considering that dark motifs like death and sadness etc. are completely different from what you might see in a comedy flick. However, with the film of In Bruges, McDonagh manages to poetically combine that seriousness with humour that is blunt and realistic to see and hear. If I had to summarise McDonagh’s work, it would be like watching Father Ted that was done by Tarantino. The performances of Gleeson and Farrell help to create this encapsulation as they both form a good interaction and contrast from one another. For sure, In Bruges is a must watch Dark Comedy that definitely tops the list as one of the better British comedy films ever to grace the silver screen.

With that dark encounter done and dealt with, it’s time to end. As always, thank you for those have read this review. If you enjoyed reading today’s film review, feel free to drop a comment down below if you have an opinion on the review or the film. I’ll be back as always next week to deliver you guys a film review of top quality… hopefully. I may have two Posts to put up next week so stay tuned to the Blog if you want to see those. Again, thanks for reading and I’ll see you all next week. Have a nice day!! 🙂

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ – Alex Rabbitte