This is what others saw on and over the Norfolk wetlands. We did identify some common waders, duck and geese and, for a bonus, a muntjac and a hare.
This really encapsulates our East Anglian safari: a brace of duck out of shot and out of season, a pink-woolly-hatted walker and memories of walking the Peddars’ Way and the Norfolk Coast Path. I enjoy a brisk two hour walk on the flat but do not intend to commit to anything more strenuous again.
The reviews of Banshees of Inisherin have been almost unanimously, exuberantly, enthusiastically positive. Two friends differed – and gave up half way through. Obv I knew I’d love it – it’s Irish, great cast and as so often in Irish films (remember The Dead?) the unknowns act the stars off the screen; great scenery; cracking camera work; outstandingly good script but – sorry – it’s a load of bollocks. Why?
1. Unless you live in LA in 2023 you cannot believe that cottages on an island off the west coast of Ireland in 1923 look like that, can you?
2. And the costumes. I can only remember Ireland in the 1950s when working men wore their best suits to Mass and their less good suits to work. The costumes are an advertisement for Margaret Howell and her ilk.
3. Most importantly, it’s a film with a point to make, albeit allegorically, and one most viewers outside Ireland will miss.
Early on in the film Pádraic and Colm hear gunfire on the mainland. It is 1923 and there’s a civil war in Ireland. The unexplained end of their friendship represents the division of society in Ireland at that time; a division almost but not quite forgotten today. It’s almost as cleverly constructed as JG Farrell’s Troubles and perhaps it’s OK to watch it as an unexplained estrangement between two friends but we stopped watching half way through.