The Banshees of Inisherin
I don't watch enough quality cinema but the scene of a man throwing his cut off fingers at his best friend's door has to be up there in terms of great cinematic experiences. I liken it to cinematic equivalent of Hans Hoffmann's slicing off a student drawing to make a point about pictorial shift. When Frank first did this I was so astounded because it explains so clearly of Cezanne's intention which was later realized by Picasso's cubists. The disruption of pictorial reality to find tension ie its life force and hidden truths had led to Art modern movement of self expression and liberation. Just so brilliant in the way Hans Hoffman found a way to explain what Cezanne saw in his spatial shift. Looking again at Titian's Entombment of Chris, I can now see how much Titian had flattened out his shapes which Cezanne used to flatten his apples and oranges to find his objective truths. So brilliant at how Frank was able to reduce down to squares and rectangles to explain the same pictorial diagonal shift and to create the same spatial shift in abstract terms. I can see now how the arms of Christs' are the main gestural lines against the mass of the 3 men which hold Chris' inner forces that will eventually powers his later ascension. He has died now but not for long which reenforces viewer's hope and strengthen its faith that this would not be the end. This is the same tension point between the hard and soft forms of Rodin's Age of Bronze that Tom was talking about. The transition between the left arm holding an invisible staph at rest vs the right elbow moving upward to create an implied motion between the hard (left side) and soft (right side) of the figure. Rodin was able to create a more "real" standing figure that seems to be "moving" and not standing still. It is interesting that the pictorial and sculptural implied disruption when done cinematically via story telling would create not just visually but a powerful psychologically effect at least for me as a viewer. The act of self-immolation (or in this case cutting one's own body part) is the highest form of human activist expression against external injustices. But to do against a banal friend is such an incredible statement of disruption done within the context of story telling of before and after ie what came before the moment vs what happens after (no spoiler here). What does the banal friend representing vs the passion of a man still creating music while blood is dripping onto his music sheets from the cut off knobs of his fingers? This movie is so subversive on so many levels that speaks to the disruption of all kind of life forces and human experiences of today's. Brilliant work.
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