It’s been over seven years now since “Calvary” had its debut at the Sundance Film Festival. The drama – or is it a black comedy? It’s hard to decide – won over critics and audiences, with particular praise going to writer/director John Michael McDonagh and lead actor Brendan Gleeson. For many of us, “Calvary” is the finest hour in the careers of both men – and that’s high praise indeed.
We won’t rehash the entire plot here or give too much away, but we do want to look at what “Calvary” is all about; what it wants to say – thematically and philosophically. However, for the purposes of framing that, we must outline a little bit of the story.
“Calvary” follows Father James (Gleeson), who we first meet in the confessional box. There, he is told by an unseen parishioner that he will be shot within a week. “There’s no point in killing a bad priest.” The parishioner says. “But killing a good one? That would be a shock.” And so, we are treated to a kind of whodunnit as we follow the quotidian life of Father James for seven days.
Gleeson delivers a stunning performance
The first thing to say is that the whodunnit (or who-will-do-it) element is unimportant. By the end of the film, you don’t really care – and that’s not a criticism. What is important is how Father James rubs up against the locals in a small Sligo village. There is plenty of humor – the film has been described as a black comedy, but that’s stretching it a bit – and it’s mostly dependent on Father James’ dry observations. He’s the straight man to the collection of oddballs we meet across that fateful week.
Religion, of course, plays a crucial role in Calvary. But while the usual specters of the Catholic Church, such as abuse, appear, it is so far removed from the traditional narratives of those things. Father James is something of a Christ-like figure, although not without flaws. But “Calvary” looks closely at the rejection of Chris – there are parallels with the biblical Passion in “Calvary.”
Great films make you root for the protagonists, even when they are capable of the vilest acts. Think of how you feel about Alex in “A Clockwork Orange” or Michael Corleone in “The Godfather.” Particularly with the former, you feel almost dirty for wanting Alex to return to being ‘bad.’ Here, you find yourself feeling sympathetic for the church, regardless of your previous feeling towards the institution of the priesthood, and it is clearly McDonagh’s goal to make you feel uncomfortable when reassessing that relationship.
While the cast, including Dylan Moran, Chris O’ Dowd, Aidan Gillen, and Kelly Reilly, are all excellent in supporting roles, it is Gleeson’s towering performance that pulls all the strands together. He quickly envelops you in his world as he pads around the village like an avuncular bear dressed in black. While his calmness when everything else is chaotic draws you into the character, it is all the more fascinating because you can see that it won’t last.
A sense of claustrophobia in open spaces
You might also argue that the film is about hell. Certainly, there are touches of Sartre’s l’enfer: c’est des Autres about “Calvary.” Replace the hotel room from Huis Clos with a remote Irish village on the Atlantic coast, and you get a similar quality. This is helped by the masterful cinematography of Larry Smith, who is able to capture the contradictions of claustrophobia in the wide and windswept beaches of the Wild Atlantic Way. There is an end-of-the-world feel about the cinematography, something we all may have glimpsed when visiting certain parts of the west coast of Ireland.
Is the film about Ireland itself? Yes, but Ireland from the inside – right under the fingernails of the country. We know filmmakers, whether from within or without, can get tangled up in cliché; anticipating what is expected in a depiction. While few Irish filmmakers descend into the Guinness and happy-go-lucky top o’ the mornings, or the symbology of shamrocks and leprechauns and Celtic knots you’ll find in Irish-themed slot games, McDonagh’s realism smashes right through to the other side.
This is an Ireland of extreme ennui, battered and bruised by the realities of the outside world, notably the 2008 Financial crisis. It’s an Ireland where cheap and impure cocaine has filtered through to the pubs of rural Sligo, and its denizens know they can snort with impunity. The theme of wanting to escape has dominated Irish films and literature. You can’t help but think about the works of Brian Friel here, given the setting. But unlike Translations and Philadelphia Here I Come, there is no will to escape. There are no dreams of America. Everyone is trapped, and they have accepted it.
“Calvary” is not perfect. While it, perhaps more than most Irish films of the past decade, touches upon a realism of the country’s relationship with the church and modernity, it also delves into surrealism. The secondary characters, while played well by the cast, are plot devices and some feel unbelievable. Indeed, as pointed out by The Guardian’s Xan Brooks, the film’s denouement is overly “operatic”, which feels a little discordant with the rest of the story.
And yet, this is surely one of the best Irish films of the 21st century. Through the prism of a small fictional village in Sligo, it catches the zeitgeist of a country grappling with modernity, dealing with changing forces from without and within. As Xan Brook’s said, “‘Calvary’ touches greatness. It crawls clear through the slime and comes out looking holy.”
