Wednesday 23 April 2008

In Bruges...

Another week and another trip t'cinema, this time to check out the gleefully non-PC and rather foul-mouthed In Bruges. According to the advertising it appears to be a fairly straight crime-based comedy caper, but within the first few minutes you're not entirely sure if you're watching the same film - no wonder, because while the trailers capture the humour on show, they completely ignore the sheer depth of the darkness to the surrounding black comedy.

At times it gets exceptionally dark and you sit there wondering 'how on earth are they going to come back from this', but then a couple of fuck-laden lines of Bruges-weary dialogue later and you're back to laughing heartily, right before it gets pitch black again ... which precedes yet another guttural, lingering chortle.

Plot wise it's simple, two hitmen who were on a job that went arse-up have been shunted off, by their foul-tongued boss, for two weeks to Bruges - a place that is apparently like a living fairytale - so that the heat surrounding them can die down. It's funny, despite the derogatory comments regarding Bruges (which are mixed with plenty of pro-Bruges sentiments of fairytale medieval magic), you end up really wanting to go and check this place out for yourself.

The bulk of the film centres of just being in Bruges itself, hence the title, and the weird inhabitants there-in who keep dragging our two leads into a variety of odd situations, and occasionally quite heart-felt and serious ones.

I can certainly say, the Americans would never make a black comedy this unashamedly politically incorrect (bravo on that, by the way) and so relentlessly bleak at certain intervals. This is most definitely a very British (or indeed Irish) film, it's pitch black dark but honestly hilarious.

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