...and now for something completely different

Rating: Null/10 (5 October 2009)

I am always on the lookout for true originals. It's such a pity they so seldom happen. "Eraserhead", "Duel" and "The Night of the Hunter" evoke the pleasure of something so completely different that it is easy to see why so much art house cinema is such a crashing bore. Don't get me wrong. I will always regard the work of Angelopoulos, Bergman and Satyajit Ray as absolutely supreme but there are so many lesser artists with so very little to say that one thirsts for entertainment that is not just mediocre time-passing but stimulates through courting the wholly unexpected. I discovered a wonderful example the other week and have to confess to being drawn to it a half dozen times since, so much so that I find myself beginning to quote lines in the same way that I do from "The Third Man", "Love and Death" and "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie". "In Bruges" is a stunner. I won't begin to outline the plot as this has been done so many times elsewhere, rather will I just say that I adore the characters of the two Irish hit men and can only admire the way that the director has made a star of a city in as integral a way as any since Carol Reed's Vienna. To cap it all I love the dramatic irony of a scene towards the end involving size and coincidence that it would be wrong to give away, but which clarifies so perfectly much that is chaotic on a first viewing, resulting in a black comedy of extreme intelligence as well as one of enormous entertainment value.