Jared Watson on Masters of Dark Comedy: Martin Mcdonagh pt.1 In Bruges

"Maybe that's what hell is, the entire rest of eternity spent in Bruges"

Martin McDonagh began his career as a playwright. His plays are humorous, tragic, and sometimes downright disturbing. Theater lacked the edge he was really looking for, so Martin decided to dip his toes into filmmaking with a short film entitled Six Shooter, which ended up winning an Academy Award. After its success, Focus Features agreed to produce a feature film based on McDonagh's screenplay, to be directed by himself called In Bruges.

After a job goes south, two hitmen flee London to hide out in Bruges. Being a quaint medieval town in Belgium, Bruges is seen as a beautiful place to visit and spend your time. Everyone just loves it, well except for Ray, who finds it to be an absolute dump, while Ken just wants to tour the town and see the sites.

As Ken tries to lay low, touring the city and keeping in touch with their boss, Ray gets bored. Keeping a low profile proves difficult for him as he gets involved with a local who robs tourists, drinks away his troubles, and does cocaine with a couple of prostitutes and a person of short stature who likes to talk about race wars.

It was actually on a weekend trip to Bruges a few years before production that Mcdonagh came up with the concept. The first character born in his head was the town itself. Everything sprouted out after that. He knew that if the city didn't let him film, he would scrap the whole project. It couldn't be Prague, or Venice, or any other medieval town, it had to be Bruges.

In Bruges is a devilishly funny film about murder, drugs, sex, and violence. But it’s also surprisingly about Purgatory, whether a spiritual or secular state of existence. It's themes are dark. Tragic moments abound. But it will still get the deepest belly laughs out of you. A little warning though, some of its humor is rather dated with use of the R-slur, M-slur, and some gay jokes. I guess time always gets the last laugh on all of us. Even or especially creative folks. Aside from that though, this film is a great little dark comedy worth the watch.

It accomplishes that surprisingly hard thing to do of being both a totally entertaining comedy about hit men AND a disturbing inquiry into how our own natures either help us advance or keep us marking time in the same place.

Jared Watson is a moviemaker, writer, and avid cinefile. Check out his work: https://www.ridgeviewdrive.com/