Directed by Ian Palmer Club, IFI,Dublin, 93 min
AS WE WENT to press, The Guardhas snaffled up a whopping €2.4 million domestically, good going considering it's not even the most hotly anticipated Irish title this year. That honour falls to Knuckle,a gnarly, 13-years-in-the-making chronicle of barefight brawling between two Traveller families.
A hit at Sundance and the subject of many rave notices, Ian Palmer's documentary has been optioned by HBO and the producers of Eastbound and Downwith a view to fashioning a gritty TV series. Gerard Butler, Robert Downey Jr and Vin Diesel are all said to be duking it out for rights to the remake.
You can see the appeal for Hollywood hucksters. Knuckleunfolds as a Shakespearean dilemma for James Quinn McDonagh, the de facto leader of the McDonagh clan. An articulate, soulful fellow, James has never lost a bout but long ago lost his mojo for mauling. For at least 10 years he has proclaimed his retirement, only to get roped in to another bloody stand-off down back roads.
It takes years for the director to establish the background details. A 1992 killing, we finally learn, provided the ignition for the feud between the McDonagh family and their Joyce cousins. Over the years, Palmer chronicles an aftermath of successive challenges and oddly ceremonial brutality.
In common with professional pugilists, opponents make YouTube video taunts and swap menacing boasts about leaving their foes looking like a “butcher’s table”. Only neutral families may attend. A subsidiary gambling industry thrives in the hedgerows.
The plot looks conveniently thrilling, and there are touches of the "Pikespoitation" found in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. But there's more to Knucklethan a sock in the eye. Are we entirely sure about these narrators? They're awfully reticent about an awful lot. Years pass before anyone involved confesses that lucrative sideline betting may carry at least as much weight as family honour.
Extended and unprecedented access changes our narrator and shooter as well. The director who once lingered on the misspelling of the word “mightey” seems to mature as time passes. Is he compromised by his ongoing relationships among the clans? Or is he fooling around?
There are many moments in Knucklethat seem to invite uninformed observations on Pavee class structure or comments along the lines of "it's part of their culture, you know". The film's great, final triumph is the possibility that the crew and participants are playing us for suckers from the get-go. Maybe it's part of their culture.
