The West has been awake for many years in Martin McDonagh's work - mostly in the theatre.
Most of his plays from 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane' to 'A Skull in Connemara' to 'The Lonesome West' and 'The Cripple of Inishman' to 'The Lieutenant of Inishmore' have taken place on Ireland's west coast or, to be more specific, in Co Galway.
His movies, however, have tended not to venture there, with their darkly comic tales unfolding in Bruges, California and Missouri.
McDonagh's fourth feature, however, finds him heading back to Ireland's west coast for a bitter tale of broken male friendship and shocking violence.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4'The Banshees of Inisherin' is a period drama set in 1923.
This is no 'Ryan's Daughter,' however.
The film instead bears the scars of some of the darkest drama and blackest humour you will see on a cinema screen this year.
And while it is heavily influenced by the spirits of John Millington Synge and Samuel Beckett, in true McDonagh fashion there is just a slight hint of Quentin Tarantino.
Fourteen years after magically pairing Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson for the hitman comedy 'In Bruges,' McDonagh has reunited them for a grim tale about a ruptured friendship.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4At the start of 'The Banshees of Inisherin,' Farrell's farmer Padraic Suilleabhain calls round to the beachside cottage of Brendan Gleeson's Colm Doherty in the expectation that they will head off to the local pub as they do every day.
Knocking the door excitedly, there's no response so he peers through a downstairs window.
He sees Colm inside but his friend doesn't respond.
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© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4Confused by Colm's behaviour, Padraic returns home where his sister, Kerry Condon's Siobhan is hanging out the washing.
Explaining to her what has just happened, she jokes that maybe Colm just doesn't like Padraic anymore and then urges him to head off to the pub.
Pat Shortt's publican Jonjo Devine is shocked not to see Padraic entering his pub with Colm and speculates that they may have had an argument.
Padraic cannot recall arguing with his friend.
Following Jonjo's advice, he heads back to Colm's house to find out what's upset him.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4Along the way, he runs into Barry Keoghan's troubled youth Dominic Kearney but he isn't interested in engaging him.
When Padraic gets to the cottage, he realises Colm has left for the pub and heads back up there.
However when he enters Jonjo's, Colm simply tells him to sit somewhere else.
Jonjo and Jon Kenny's customer Gerry are as puzzled as Padraic as to why Colm is being so gruff.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4With the two of them encouraging Padraic to have a conversation with his pal, the younger man is stunned when Colm tells him he just doesn't like him anymore and doesn't want to spend any more time in his company.
This completely throws Padraic who can't understand why.
The following day he assumes it has been an April Fool prank but when he approaches Colm, the older man insists it is not.
The fracturing of the relationship really troubles Padraic.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4The more he approaches Colm seeking a resolution or an explanation, the more it irritates his former friend to the point where the elder man threatens to chop off a finger every time Padraic tries to speak to him.
Padraic, Jonjo and Gerry are shocked when Colm, a respected fiddle player, threatens this.
Padraic subsequently befriends Dominic who observes Colm is behaving like a 12 year old.
The schism between Colm and Padraic, though, is the talk of Inisherin.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4It soon becomes clear that Colm is more focused on writing a piece of music and believes that spending time with Padraic is a waste of time and a distraction from doing something meaningful with his life.
While Padraic knocks about with Dominic and falls foul of the boy's thuggish policeman father Gary Lydon's Peadar Kearney, Siobhan is wrestling with a life changing decision.
A rock of good sense, she is appalled by the feud, especially when it takes a much darker turn.
Ever since it received a 15 minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, there has been a lot of awards buzz around 'The Banshees of Inisherin' and it is easy to understand why.
©Searchlight Pictures and Film4 Farrell and Gleeson are an electric screen partnership and while the events of 'The Banshees of Inisherin' seem a world away from the adventures of two hitmen hiding out 'In Bruges,' there are some similarities.
As in McDonagh's first feature, Gleeson's character is the more cultured of the two.
However the writer director flips the dynamics of their previous collaboration, with Colm mirroring the sullenness of Farrell's character in 'In Bruges' and Padraic being the kinder, more gentle one.
Death stalks the movie in much the same way as it did in 'In Bruges,' with a sense that Colm's impetuousness is fuelled by a desire to create something before his time runs out.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4The fallout between both friends also mirrors the civil war taking place on the mainland between Michael Collins' pro Treaty and pro partition Free State forces and Eamon de Valera's anti Treaty rebels.
While the name "Inisherin" in Irish literally means the island of Ireland, it would be a mistake to think McDonagh's movie is simply about the bitter war that erupted in the country after independence.
On one level, it clearly relates to that conflict but it could also be an allegory for civil wars anywhere in the world.
It could represent too the bitter falling out of religious congregations or schisms within political parties.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4The acts of irrational loathing and self harm depicted in the film could - depending on your point of view - easily be about Brexit or the storming of the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump.
Colm's accusation that Padraic is too dull to waste his time on is not uncommon in marital breakups and is no less hurtful.
But the suddenness and brutality of the fracturing of their relationship is like a dagger in the belly of McDonagh's drama which is a melancholic tragedy infused with very dark humour.
It's hard to believe neither Farrell nor Gleeson have been Oscar nominees - even though the former deservedly picked up a Golden Globe for his work on 'In Bruges'.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4Surely this time neither will be overlooked?
There is a strong case too for Condon and Keoghan to receive awards attention and it'll be fascinating to see if the clamour for all four grows as we hit the Golden Globes in January.
As Padraic, Farrell has never been softer, adopting a gentle west of Ireland accent and sporting a devastated look for much of the film.
Despite facing some serious competition from a cute donkey called Jenny who follows Padraic around, he is very adept at engaging our sympathy in a performance that won him the Best Actor award in Venice.
Searchlight Pictures and Film 4Gleeson has always been an actor of great range but he has rarely felt sterner onscreen.
Condon is terrific as an intelligent woman torn between duty and a love for her brother and a desire to make a better life for herself.
Keoghan is wonderfully twitchy as the abused son of a brutal man.
Like a Shakespearean fool, Dominic spouts a lot more wisdom than his neighbours give him credit for.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4Lydon shines as the boy's thug of a father.
It is also lovely to see Pat Shortt and Jon Kenny of the comedy duo D'Unbelievables reunited once more as Jonjo and Gerry.
David Pearse amuses as the local parish priest who battles Colm in the confessional, while Sheila Flitton is pretty creepy as the pipe smoking, ghoulish looking Mrs McCormick.
Shot on Inishmore on the Aran Islands off the Co Galway coast and on Achill Island in Co Mayo, 'The Banshees of Inisherin' boasts some gorgeous cinematography by Ben Davis.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4Not only does he capture the lushness of the rugged Atlantic coast landscape but the interiors of the cottages and pub are so beautifully lit, it is as if they are living Vermeer paintings.
McDonagh's choice of music is surprising and intelligent from Carter Burwell's subtle score to the opening sounds of Trio Bulgarka.
McDonagh has always had a tendency to toy in his work with Irish drama stereotypes - particularly in his plays - and that has met with ambivalence from some in his ancestral homeland.
With its horse and carts, donkeys and small rural town dynamics, audiences will be reminded of Robert O'Flaherty's 'Man of Aran,' John Ford's 'The Quiet Man,' David Lean's 'Ryan's Daughter' Jim Sheridan's 'The Field' or even the quirky humour of Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews' Channel 4 sitcom 'Father Ted'.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4However 'The Banshees of Inisherin' mostly dances to its own distinctive, very macabre tune.
Its beats are the beats of a heart of darkness and it refuses to let go of that sombre tone even when it is being funny.
'The Banshees of inisherin' is not the sort of film that easily fades from memory.
It is a profound meditation on the fracturing of relationships at a time of conflict in the world and when political systems seem so broken.
© Searchlight Pictures and Film 4It is a film whose lessons we may be ruminating on for some time.
The question is: are we listening?
Or like Padraic, are we likely to wander around in a daze struggling to comprehend what has happened?
The next few years will tell that tale - not just in Ireland, Britain, the US, Russia and the Ukraine but in every nation around the world.
('The Banshees of Inisherin' opened in UK and Irish cinemas on October 21, 2022)
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