My review this week is of Calvary, a rather darkly comic look at one week in the life of a Catholic priest serving a small Irish town. I want to briefly highlight and expand upon this passage from my review:
A palpable sense of anger—a justifiable one—undergirds virtually every moment in the film. Ireland’s structures have been shaken in recent years; the church has seen its moral authority diminish and the banking class did a good job of wrecking the economy. And no one seems to be able to do anything about it.
After seeing the film, I was lucky enough to get a chance to discuss it with writer/director John Michael McDonagh at a small cocktail reception for members of the Washington Area Film Critics Association. During our chat, he mentioned that Irish writers often worry about the films made in Ireland that the rest of the world sees. Does it portray the Emerald Isle in the right light? Will it unfairly expose the nation's hypocrisies, its worries, its issues to a broader world that, honestly, doesn't see a lot of that nation's cinema?
McDonagh was dismissive of the criticism, and for good reason. Because good art is universal. And I don't mean that just in a "We are all human and thus suffer from the same crises of conscience" sort of way. In an increasingly globalized world with increasingly similar problems, art transcends national boundaries with greater ease than ever.
Consider the passage above. America's struggles with the banking industry and the misery the crash of 2008 unleashed need no reintroduction; we're just now getting back on our feet. And Americans have been giving the Catholic Church the side-eye for decades, the average man and woman shocked by the ongoing and never-ending revelations of child abuse by priests. The collapse of faith in both the Church and the business community is something the entire world—or, at least, the entire western world—has had to deal with. Ireland's problems are, in a very real way, the world's problems. Which is to say, I seriously doubt a discerning viewer will watch Calvary and think, "My oh my, Ireland is an especially depraved place."
Anyway, if you're into black comedy, you should check out McDonagh's latest. And if you're an Irish writer worrying that his latest makes you look bad, don't. We've got issues, all of us.