In Bruges

I never would have watched this film except that my son happened to be in Bruges, and I wanted to see what he was seeing in the “most completely medieval city in Europe.” The Flemish setting is beautifully rendered, but the story is about two hit men on the lam, with all the blood-spattering that implies. Despite a reliance on basic gangland movie tropes, this first film from Irish playwright Martin McDonagh is notable for its profane eloquence and wit, along with a perverse Catholicity. Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes are all excellent as killers with quirks and sensibilities. I am not of the party who chose Pulp Fiction as the #1 cultural artifact of the first 1000 issues of Entertainment Weekly, and I have next to no interest in the School of Tarantino, but in that spurting vein of cinema, this film did entertain me. Maybe it was the Irish in it. (2008, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-67.)

P.S. -- I do not subscribe to the Pauline Kael dictum of seeing a film only once, but I do find it striking how rarely one has significantly different reactions to a given film, except when the viewer has changed significantly in the interim. Though the pure painful/joyful surprise of watching The Diving Bell & the Butterfly unfold was past, upon re-viewing Julian Schnabel’s film confirmed its place for me as one of the very best of 2007.