Martin McDonagh’s latest film, “The Banshees of Inisherin“, represents a departure for him, as well as his fans. It is more personal, and darker, than anything of his I’ve seen before. And, inevitably, it influences our memory of his previous work.

Still, he is as nimble as ever. The darkness creeps in slowly, but all the while he delights with his familiar, wise and knowing wit, as natural and human as any comic sensibility in films today. While the characters may call each other stupid, there is not a one that doesn’t sneak in a nasty jab in return.

Inisherin is a fictional island off the Irish coast, and from the first images we see a green, seabound landscape that cannot be much different from what it was five hundred years ago. Isolated stone huts, free-roaming animals and sparse residents driving one-horse carts or slowly walking on dirt roads. From the film’s first moment, we are plunged into the central dramatic conflict. Padraic, played by Colin Farrell, knocks on the window of his older buddy Colm’s house so they can have their daily chat over beers at the pub. But Colm, played by Brendan Gleeson, sits smoking in silence, clearly ignoring him. Later, Padraic’s  sister, Siobhan, played by Kerry Condon, suggests jokingly that maybe Colm doesn’t like him any more. Well, we find out it’s not a joke at all. Colm tells Padraic exactly that to his face later at the pub. Colm explains, impatiently, that he realizes he is approaching death, and has nothing to show for it. He has wasted his creative years drinking with dull, dim Padraic, who can blather for hours about useless things. So he must do something important, namely compose fine music on his fiddle, while there’s still time.

And he means it. In dead seriousness, he tells Padraic in public that he’ll cut off one of his own fingers, the fiddle ones, every time Padraic ever tries to talks to him again. Looking at life both with detached amusement and tragic despair, McDonagh makes Colm’s fiddle fingers a prime element of the narrative, which he spins in three dramatic conflicts:

First, Padraic and Colm interact consistently, spurred in part by Padraic’s belief that Colm cannot be serious. Of course, that reaction seems reasonable, at first, but Padraic’s continued belief after seeing bloody evidence to the contrary seems to support Colm’s claim that Padraic is simply dim. In fact, Pandraic’s beloved donkey, Jenny, and Colm’s dog show a more nuanced understanding of the real world than Padraic does, at least at first. But Padraic’s  eventual awareness of the world, and of the illusions he is soon forced to give up, constitute the sad climax to the film.

A second theme, and the only element of hope the audience is given to cling to, is Siobhan’s escape from the hell of Inisherin. She seems the only person of intelligence who is capable of seeing a future worth living. She has secretly found a job on the mainland, and is traumatized by having to tell Padraic that she is leaving. She more than anyone knows how helpless he would be without her, and her anxiety is almost paralyzing.

The last dramatic thread concerns Dominic, a feckless youth played by the extraordinary Barry Keoghan. Dominic is so confused by the world that he thinks Padraic is a worthy role model, and clings to him everywhere. Dominic’s father, a malicious and cruel constable, played by Gary Lydon, beats him savagely, and seems to delight in publicly humiliating him. Dominic’s only view of his future, however, is the hopeless delusion that Siobhan will fall in love with him

Two of these narratives end in despair, one of them tragically, and I must conclude that the overall tone of the film shows that McDonagh is in a dark place. The pall of death is cast frequently, as personified in the conception of Mrs.McCormick, played by Sheila Flitten. Written as just a nosy, nasty widow, she reappears in increasingly grim, inappropriate costumes that clearly evoke the Death of Ingmar Bergnman’s “The Seventh Seal”, especially in the film’s last shot. And, unlike a Woody Allen cinemaphile joke, it won’t make you smile.