The Gazette (Canada) Review 20.01.08
Source: The Gazette
Politically incorrect film reveals itself to be a dark comedy despite graphic nature
Katherine Monk, CanWest News Service
Published: 3 hours agoPARK CITY, UT - "Welcome ambush marketers," said Robert Redford - in unmistakable deadpan - as he addressed the capacity crowd at the opening night of the Sundance gala for In Bruges.
A term that was essentially coined at Sundance to describe the hordes of hopeful merchandisers who simply show up in Park City with a palette full of freebies for celebrities, "ambush marketing" has become the forward-thinking festival's biggest bugbear.
According to organizers, who loathe talking about the problem about as much as they hate the problem itself, the branding frenzy not only debases the Sundance image, it also creates competition for the festival's official sponsors who spend big bucks to have their banners placed in hotel lobbies and their corporate logo appear in the trailers before every Sundance film.
This year, the festival even sent letters to attending filmmakers with a request they refrain from binging at the ubiquitous swag suites, and focus on the community-building, artist-focused aspect of the festival.
The move follows another swag-busting initiative launched by the Internal Revenue Service last year, demanding that all free goods be reported as a taxable benefit.
For all the effort, however, the measures have had no visible effect here in Park City, where every storefront is rebranded for the festival's duration, ensuring a stroll down historic Main Street reads like a commercial: The Stella Artois Lounge, The Turning Leaf, Hewlett-Packard House, Lexus Lounge, and so on, and so on.
Not even the opening gala was immune. Once the final credits started rolling on Martin McDonagh's dark take on one hitman's moral crisis, the ambush began anew - with hopefuls handing out everything from independent documentaries to health supplements to exiting guests.
For the attendees, the onslaught of ambushers was hardly a problem. After sitting through McDonagh's blistering screen adaptation of his stage play about two hitmen holed up in a fairy tale town in Belgium for the better part of two hours, viewers were in a decidedly altered state.
McDonagh said his film "wasn't too PC" in his opening press conference remarks, and he wasn't joking. The film, which features Colin Farrell as a failed hitman who botches the murder of a priest - after he takes his confession - includes all sorts of taboos: hitting a woman in the face, racist slurs, drug use and some of the goriest violence seen since Sam Peckinpah (the notorious director of Straw Dogs, The Wild Bunch).
At one pivotal point in the film, where Farrell's mistake is unveiled in all its tragic pathos, several audience members gasped in disbelief as they watched a bullet exit the forehead of a young boy praying before God.
No wonder McDonagh said he was "scared sh-less " before the premiere. Perhaps anticipating a problematic reception, McDonagh and his cast did not do a post-screening Q&A.He had nothing to worry about though. Despite the potent images, In Bruges does score as a comedy - a very, very black comedy - but a comedy nonetheless. Viewers can make their own call on the film when it opens wide in February.
