Despite being only tangentially Christmassy, In Bruges is a classic festive film

Iused to hate Christmas. It wasn’t the holiday’s fault, of course, but the pressure to get in the spirit always seemed suffocating to me. And although I’ve grown to appreciate this time of year, my choice of festive films still tends to veer towards the non-traditional. Holiday Inn? Nope. Miracle on 34th Street? Pass. In Bruges … cue it up.

Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy is, admittedly, only tangentially Christmassy. But like The Pogues’ debauched hymn “Fairytale of New York” — dwelling as it does in broken dreams, despair and a Christmas Eve binge that culminates in a visit to the drunk tank — it’s an essential part of my Yuletide canon. The 2008 film, starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes, is an existential tale of alienation, melancholy and sorrow.

Two Irish hitmen, Ray (a novice) and Gleeson’s Ken (a veteran), are exiled to Bruges after Ray’s first job for crime boss Harry (Fiennes) goes tragically awry. A choirboy, clutching a note listing the sins he is to confess – “1. Being Moody 2. Being bad at maths. 3. Being Sad.” – is killed instantly as Ray’s bullet passes through his mark, a priest, striking the child in the head.

Like The Pogues’ song, the characters of In Bruges find themselves mired in a purgatorial fairy tale. However, the similarities end there. New York City, as American-Irish novelist J. P. Donleavy’s protagonist describes in A Fairy Tale of New York (which inspired the song’s title), is “the city that is too rich to laugh at and too lonely and too ruthless to love and where happiness is a big cat with a mouse on a square mile of linoleum.” But in the film, in all its inky-canalled, Gothic glory, Bruges, the most exquisitely preserved medieval city in Belgium, is simply described as “a s--thole” by Ray.

The atmosphere of goowill and cheer in Bruges — swans a-swimming, fires blazing in cozy fireplaces, candle-lit churches, Christmas trees trimmed with gilded ornaments and families revelling — only serves to emphasize Ray’s anguish as he grapples with his murderous act. “A great day this has turned out to be. I’m suicidal, me mate tries to kill me, me gun gets nicked and we’re still in f--king Bruges.”

The film walks the line between comedy and tragedy, just as Ken attempts to “strike a balance between culture and fun” as he and Ray “quietly sightsee” amid the medieval architecture, cobblestone streets and Christmas mirth. The duo bides its time, Ray alternating between profound suffering and courting drug dealer Chloe (Clémence Poésy), until Harry calls with instructions. “It’s a fairy tale town, isn’t it? How’s a fairy tale town not somebody’s f--king thing? How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, all that beautiful f-king fairy tale stuff, how can that not be somebody’s f--king thing, eh?” Harry menacingly asks Ken, when he eventually does call.

As if on cue, fog descends and snow falls on the historic centre; actors, half man and half beast, mill about a film set wearing horse skulls, mouse masks, pig snouts and long, pointed beaks. Ray, now gravely wounded at Harry’s hands, is suddenly face-to-face with his suicidal desires and past transgression. “There’s a Christmas tree somewhere in London with a bunch of presents underneath it that’ll never be opened. And I thought, if I survive all of this, I’d go to that house, apologize to the mother there and accept whatever punishment she chose for me. Prison... death... didn’t matter. Because at least in prison and at least in death, you know, I wouldn’t be in f---in’ Bruges,” says Ray, in voice-over. “But then, like a flash, it came to me. And I realized, f--k man, maybe that’s what hell is: the entire rest of eternity spent in f--kin’ Bruges. And I really, really hoped I wouldn’t die. I really, really hoped I wouldn’t die.”

In Bruges has a heavy heart, which McDonagh expertly offsets with gallows humour. None of its characters save Christmas, mutate into Santa or teach the world-weary to “believe.” But nonetheless, its exploration of morality and redemption, honour and humanity suits the season. It’s a twilight fairy tale of holiday purgatory in which there still exists hope for the otherwise hopeless.

But more important than any other aspect of this holiday classic is that there is nary a Christmastime cliché in sight.