Henry James had this idea that sports were "the moral equivalent of war." Instead of taking it out on the battlefield, humans could take it out on the gridiron or the boxing ring. It was all in keeping with the hydraulic theory of emotion promoted by Freud. You know, get it off your chest. Boy, were they wrong.
What gloom -- social, narrative, and visual. Danny comes back after fourteen years in the slams (sentenced for acts committed during his affiliation with the IRA and because he wouldn't rat on a comrade) to find his former girlfriend, whom he still loves, inaccessible and his former milieu more complicated and twisted than it had once seemed.
Boxing serves as a metaphor for the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Danny has practiced a lot while in prison and is now a bit old but still pretty good. At least, after all those years of feeling nothing, he can now experience pain and release his rage.
Danny builds a primitive "non-sectarian" gym in the middle of Belfast during the Troubles, hoping to bring the two religious factions together. The boxing scenes aren't that good. Danny and his opponents are like two club fighters. No fancy footwork, no missed punches, no gangling around between shots -- just WHAP WHAP WHAP as each punch lands dead on target. And the gymnasium is so dark (a kind of electronic blue pervades almost every underlit scene, which is just about all of the scenes) that the marvel is not so much that the boxers could punch one another but that they didn't fall all over each other in the dark.
Danny views the gymnasium and its matches as a kind of ecumenical shrine where adversaries can take it out on one another in a socially approved William-Jamesian manner, a bit less brutal than blowing them to pieces. In the end he realizes that even this symbolic warfare is unjustified and throws in his own towel after pummeling an opponent almost into unconsciousness. The IRA begins to see the light as well and the movement becomes oh so peaceful after a bit of soul-searching, except for one no-goodnik (the guy whose bacon was saved when Danny didn't rat on him).
But the bitter reactionary is a renegade and is disposed of by the organization without a great deal of trouble. Come to think of it, there isn't that much that separates the idealistic IRA folks from Doctors Without Borders. Daniel Day-Lewis does a splendid job as Danny Flynn. In no way is his appearance gussied up.
He looks like an ex-inmate. Emily Watson, with her broad forehead and searching eyes, is becoming one of our more talented actresses. Their Irish accents are flawless, at least to American ears. A fine and mostly uncompromising movie about romance and idealism set against the background of the troubles. It's dreary, inside and out, but it's not slow and it's a movie made for adults, not an audience whose emotional development has been arrested.
What gloom -- social, narrative, and visual. Danny comes back after fourteen years in the slams (sentenced for acts committed during his affiliation with the IRA and because he wouldn't rat on a comrade) to find his former girlfriend, whom he still loves, inaccessible and his former milieu more complicated and twisted than it had once seemed.
Boxing serves as a metaphor for the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Danny has practiced a lot while in prison and is now a bit old but still pretty good. At least, after all those years of feeling nothing, he can now experience pain and release his rage.
Danny builds a primitive "non-sectarian" gym in the middle of Belfast during the Troubles, hoping to bring the two religious factions together. The boxing scenes aren't that good. Danny and his opponents are like two club fighters. No fancy footwork, no missed punches, no gangling around between shots -- just WHAP WHAP WHAP as each punch lands dead on target. And the gymnasium is so dark (a kind of electronic blue pervades almost every underlit scene, which is just about all of the scenes) that the marvel is not so much that the boxers could punch one another but that they didn't fall all over each other in the dark.
Danny views the gymnasium and its matches as a kind of ecumenical shrine where adversaries can take it out on one another in a socially approved William-Jamesian manner, a bit less brutal than blowing them to pieces. In the end he realizes that even this symbolic warfare is unjustified and throws in his own towel after pummeling an opponent almost into unconsciousness. The IRA begins to see the light as well and the movement becomes oh so peaceful after a bit of soul-searching, except for one no-goodnik (the guy whose bacon was saved when Danny didn't rat on him).
But the bitter reactionary is a renegade and is disposed of by the organization without a great deal of trouble. Come to think of it, there isn't that much that separates the idealistic IRA folks from Doctors Without Borders. Daniel Day-Lewis does a splendid job as Danny Flynn. In no way is his appearance gussied up.
He looks like an ex-inmate. Emily Watson, with her broad forehead and searching eyes, is becoming one of our more talented actresses. Their Irish accents are flawless, at least to American ears. A fine and mostly uncompromising movie about romance and idealism set against the background of the troubles. It's dreary, inside and out, but it's not slow and it's a movie made for adults, not an audience whose emotional development has been arrested.