• 1 Similarities between Don't Look Now (set in Venice) and In Bruges include canals, gothic architectu (...)

4Set in Bruges, Belgium, McDonagh presents the picturesque town as the unlikely backdrop to a scenario where two Dubliners, a London cockney, an American actor and a couple of Belgian criminals become embroiled in an emotionally-charged, convoluted and hilarious set of circumstances. The two main protagonists, Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) have been sent to Bruges on a job by their London hit-man boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes) and have been ordered to wait there for further instructions. While they wait, Ken gladly familiarizes himself with the cultural aspects of the town. Ray, on the other hand, preoccupied with evading the guilt of his first failed job assignment, in which he mistakenly shot a child, focuses on consuming as much drugs and alcohol as he can and strikes up a romance with Chloё (Clémence Poésy). Chloё is a Belgian drug-dealer disguised as a production assistant working on a Dutch film featuring an American dwarf (Jordan Prentice). The section being shot during the narrative of In Bruges is a dream sequence and Chloё informs Ray on their first meeting that the film is not a “hommage” but more “a nod of the head” to Nicolas Roeg’s Don't Look Now (1973).1

• 2 Carter Burwell is a renowned American film composer noted for his minimalism and his unconventional (...)

6But the level of intrigue is more potent than one might expect as one gradually becomes aware of the strategic semiotic interference within the film’s text. Carter Burwell’s2 music score contributes largely to the aesthetic contrast that is created and this input may actually be the film’s most striking and perplexing feature. A delicate melody sets the picture alight, luring the spectator at a subconscious level so that one may seem to be watching two films at once. Colloquialisms repeatedly clash with the visual dimension of the film and Burwell’s score compounds this aspect, disconcerting the viewer. Subtle, yet magnetic, particularly alongside the visual milieu of Bruges, Burwell’s piano solo is certainly not what one would expect to compliment a gangster comedy. The invisible nature of the score is paramount in creating this dichotomy, brilliantly manipulating the tone of the narrative by subverting any notions of sleaze or hardcore violence.

• 3 In The Beauty Queen of Leenane, there are several references, bordering on the ridiculous, to the e (...)

8Similar techniques are used by McDonagh in his plays. Such tactics are executed with skill and formulate an interesting approach to comedy. The method brings to mind Jacque Derrida’s theory Of Grammatology wherein values are questioned and hierarchies of thought and feeling are overthrown. The more one places trust in the narrative, the more likely one is let down by it. The weaving together of several dialects of English, predominantly Dublin and Cockney English create associations that are in direction opposition to Bruges as a location. What we see is in conflict with what we hear in terms of the script, thus, a sub-narrative is established through the various codes and linguistic associations. The construction of a sub-narrative which diverts the attention of the audience has become a trademark of McDonagh’s, allowing the work to address weighty subject-matter without the weight.3 But the method has a mischievous quality, almost as though the director is slighting his audience and defying his critics. Therefore, a sense of abandon or a relinquishing of expectation becomes essential in absorbing the quirky madness of McDonagh.

• 4 Quentin Tarantino’s films “draw on a mixture of cinematic sources and deploy the rhetoric of violen (...)

9In Bruges and McDonagh’s award winning short film Six Shooter (2006) are often hailed as having a Tarantinoesque4 quality, yet the level of ‘blood and guts’ and subsequent realism is not nearly as disturbing. McDonagh’s application of violence is distinct in that while it creates an intensity, it still maintains a certain degree of dissociation, thus, allowing the film to work on different levels, levels that McDonagh is very much aware of. When Ray commits his first cold blooded murder, a comfortable distance is established between the audience and the victim’s traumas, making the harsher elements that much more palatable. The revelation that Ray has mistakenly shot a little boy when he assassinates a priest is absurd. The scenario in which a bullet kills two people at once and the non-naturalistic wound on the boy’s forehead is no less absurd. A strong sense of parody is at work here.

• 5 See Jan Provoost, ‘Death and the Miser’ (1505-10), Web Gallery of Art, http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.h (...)
• 6 See ‘Jan Provoost Death and the Miser’ in Belgium & Luxembourg, Google Books, Martin Dunford & Phil (...)

10After the gruesome scene, there is an artistic birds-eye view of Ray amidst the carnage, after which there is a close-up of the boy’s bloodstained confession note, which reads: “1. Being moody, 2. Being bad at maths, 3. Being sad”. All at once, the spectator is horrified, but also imbued with style and humour. The murder scene is subsequently transferred to a shot of an oak panelled diptych of Jan Provoost’s fifteenth century painting ‘Death and the Miser’5 which portrays a merchant passing a promissory note to a grinning skeleton in the next panel.6 There is no obvious connection between the confession and the promissory notes except that death has nullified each of them. The connotations induced then become subjective or culture specific, and are possibly McDonagh’s self-referential way of likening film to ‘high’ art.

• 7 See Laura Eldred, “Martin McDonagh and the Contemporary Gothic”, in Martin McDonagh: A Casebook edi (...)
• 8 The ethics of violence in cinema is self-referentially addressed in McDonagh’s recent film Seven Ps (...)

12Thus, this may validate Laura Eldred’s view that “the monstrous capacity of the audience is revealed and indicted” in McDonagh’s productions, as we are forced “to come face to face with [our] own blood thirst” and are perhaps even shown to take pleasure in seeing other people suffer (Russell, 119).7 Nonetheless, the counterargument of Richard Rankin Russell suggests that the “often uneasy laughter” apparent in McDonagh’s productions in fact reveals “the audience's discomfort” with his strategy and implies that the cruelty has “a far more ethical force than is sometimes admitted …” (Russell, 3).8 And so, it seems as we are given a glimpse of our own potential for evil, it is the absurdity of human behaviour itself that infatuates the audience, not so much the violence.

• 9 The main plot leads to a significant level of intensity, at which point the audience is deflated by (...)

13Another incidence of self-reflexivity is revealed towards the end of the film when the characters themselves create a satire out of the so called ‘shoot out’. In this instance, the contrivance points to cinema itself. The scene is deliberately slowed down and quashed by the actor’s allusion to it, such as when Ray momentarily suspends the action by asking Harry, his opponent, which one of them should count to three before they advance to the next part of the shoot out. Although the performance cleverly maintains the build-up and adrenalin rush that is expected in such a scene, there is little doubt that McDonagh is also making a reference to cinema itself, perhaps even making a skit of mainstream narrative by bringing attention to the trite familiarity of the action movie. There is a tone of deconstruction here, as we are momentarily thrown out of the film.9 In this instance, one is reminded of the characteristics of the nouvelle vague, fashioned by Jean Luc Godard, which boldly incorporated the Hollywood genre movie into French cinema. However, McDonagh duly reverses any inkling of European elitism when in a previous scene, Ken asks Jimmy how the movie is going, to which he sardonically replies: “it's a jumped-up Eurotrash piece of rip-off fucking bullshit”. Here we have the American humorously jousting back at Chloë’s initial and possibly pretentious reference to the Dutch film not being a “hommage”, but more a salute to the British director, Nicolas Roeg.

• 10 In Bruges was initially scripted with two English characters in mind. Had this been the case, it mi (...)

16Although there are a variety of nationalities in the film, the casting of Gleeson and Farrell as the main stars and the authenticity of their accents give it a strong Irish dimension. However, the razor-sharp cockney humour of Fiennes’s character alleviates any notion of Irishness dominating the narrative.10 While In Bruges only affects at being multilingual (there are a few instances where English subtitles are used), English is indubitably the dominant language but is presented in several colourful dialects, Dublin English, Cockney English, Belgian English, Dutch English, American English and Canadian English. And so, as well as the location and cast, the dialectical choice also assists in destabilizing the destructive blinkered hold that often has its basis in nativism and nationalistic thought. Placing these characters in unconventional surroundings and among other nationalities makes them more ambiguous and allows for a more complex interpretation of them socially, culturally and psychologically.

• 11 Hamid Nacify, "Situating Accented Cinema", An Accented Cinema - Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, p. (...)

17In Bruges exemplifies the paradoxical nature of sensibility on the one hand and dissociation on the other that is characteristic of a diasporan; in other words the creative benefits of the vacillating outsider who observes with an ambiguous gaze, yet possesses an ability to innovate without the weight of cultural baggage. Having the aptitude to speak artistically about the motherland without being immersed in its national prejudices is not without its rewards. According to Hamid Naficy, in his essay, “Situating Accented Cinema”, “all great authorship is predicated on distance - banishment and exile of sorts”, and “the resulting tensions and ambivalences produce […] complexity and […] intensity that are so characteristic of great works of art and literature”.11

• 12 Nacify, p.11.
• 13 Ray and Ken could be novice diasporans. There is no evidence that they live in Ireland; they work f (...)

18For Naficy, the challenge of being “deterritorialised” means that filmmakers are forced to develop an authorial style.12 McDonagh’s synchronized sense of place and sense of difference reflects such an advantage. In In Bruges the cultural disparities between Ray and Ken pose questions about the migratory experience, those of exile and diaspora. From what we can gather by their pronounced accents and unless they are recent British émigrés, neither of the characters are confirmed diasporans.13 Nonetheless, they both signify different variants of displaced citizens. McDonagh’s wily sense of dislocation, via a second generation London-Irish upbringing has assisted him in thinking outside the geographical box and has given rise to an understanding of both mindsets.

• 14 Nacify, p.14.
• 15 Nacify, p.12.

19In his study, Nacify creates a divide between the qualities and aspirations of an exile and those of a diasporan. His hypothesis proposes that “binarism” and “subtraction” are characteristics of the former, while “multiplicity” and “addition” reflect that of the latter.14 This contrast is evident in the behaviour of the protagonists.15 Ray’s anxiety and intolerance reflects that of an exile; he has a black and white approach to life – “binarism”; he is suspicious of new cultures and has a tendency to weigh up his experiences with life in Dublin – “subtraction”. When Ken asks him to come and enjoy the view from the impressive bell-tower in the city square, he retorts defensively: “Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I’d grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me, but I didn’t, so it doesn’t”. He also endorses the fact that “the one thing [he] likes about Europe [is that] you don’t have to learn any their languages”. Conversely, Ken’s temperance and open-mindedness is more in accordance with the principles of a diasporan. Overall, he is comfortable with the different cultures he encounters –“multiplicity”, and he is eager to accumulate new experiences – “addition”.

• 16 Nacify, p.15.

20Although Nacify’s study applies primarily to filmmakers, his views correspond to diasporas and exiles in general. He makes a further distinction between the exile’s focus on “there and then” and the diasporan’s contentment with the “here and now”.16 “Although [exiles] do not return to their homelands, they maintain an intense desire to do so,” in which case they perpetuate their opposing emotional attitudes and remain eternally dissatisfied. Ray personifies these traits; he is on the run, has a longing for Dublin but cannot return. He is hugely attached to his Irish identity and is very much threatened by difference. In fact anything that has not to do with alcohol, straight sex or Dublin is prohibited. Americans, farmers, blacks, homosexuals, Pakistanis, prostitutes, and the learning disabled are all out of bounds. Ken, on the other hand, is happy in Europe and does not feel compelled to constantly reinstate his nationality. He is a more complex character. Although he is embroiled in the life of an assassin he has developed other interests and a sensibility towards the finer things in life. And in many ways his genuine interest in the cultural aspects of Bruges redeems his criminality, thus, adding to the intrigue of the narrative.

• 17 ‘Visit Bruges’. See: http://www.visit-bruges.com/cathedrals-churches/the-chapel-of-the-holy-blood.h (...)

21In fact where these opposing characteristics converge is a high point of the film in terms of its comical content. After a series of bickering arguments, Ray agrees to accompany Ken on an excursion to the Flemish sites and museums, provided he gets to take Chloё out on a date that evening. Among many tourist attractions, they visit The Basilica of the Holy Blood, which is revered as a “repository of a venerated phial said to contain a cloth with [the] blood of Jesus Christ”.17 Ken earnestly explains to Ray the significance of the phial and launches into a detailed account of how a Flemish knight transported the blood from the Holy Land to Bruges in the twelfth century, added to the fact that at different times, particularly times of great stress, the dried blood would turn back into liquid. But when Ken suggests that they both join the queue to touch the relic, Ray childishly squirms: “Do I have to?” to which Ken, clearly annoyed, responds: “Do I have to? Do you have to? It’s Jesus’s fucking blood, isn’t it? Of course you don’t fucking have to!”. Ray's half-heartedness and his indifference to what might be considered a miraculous phenomenon or an ancient cultural spectacle frustrates Ken to the point of explosion. Regardless of the fact that they are both assassins and despite their outer similarities and obvious friendship, a strong differentiation is made between their cultural persuasions. Ray is still entrenched in the drink culture and in reaffirming his Irish identity through it; his attachment to the popular and the familiar is unremitting. Ken, on the other hand, has moved on and is benefiting from a willingness to explore.

• 18 Michael D. Higgins, "The Challenge of  Building the Mind of Peace, Asserting the Humanistic Vision" (...)
• 19 See Special Features, In Bruges DVD (2007).
• 20 McDonagh, Martin, and Colin Farrell, “A discussion about the film In Bruges” Interview with Charlie (...)

22Hence, the hit-man narrative is merely a superficial cinematic layer, initially creating an impression that the characters, being partners in crime, are sharing a common rhythm. Yet, when probed deeper, one realizes that they are in fact worlds apart. This divergence, particularly in Ken’s case, points to what Michael D. Higgins calls “the risks and the neglected benefits of having being [...] condemned to break the inherited links [...] to cultural certainties”.18 The migrants’ trajectory, although generally rewarding, is often preceded by trial and conflict, for in order to embrace new cultures and hear the next man or woman’s story, elements of one’s own learned experience may be challenged, or required in some instances, to dissipate. Interestingly, McDonagh admits to having created the two characters from his own experience when visiting Bruges.19 On the one hand he found the city incredibly beautiful, on the other, incredibly boring. In a television interview with Charlie Rose, he wittily refers to the polarization of the culture lover and the drunken whore within himself.20 Thus, the genus of the narrative came from a voice in his own head, a voice that recognises diversity as an inevitability but also one which verifies the contradictory or often irreconcilable forms of social, moral and cultural practice.

• 21 Higgins, p. 63.

23In Bruges then, is facilitating the transition from the insular ‘identity-obsessed’ character, who habitually references the past, to one who looks to the future and embraces cultural diversity and global change. In the words of Higgins, “if we are to learn tolerance [...] it must include [...] the commitment to hear a multitude of stories”.21 McDonagh’s grasp of the complexity of experience reflects such worldliness, rendering him a filmmaker who is not bound by any set framework, but one who accepts unequivocally the transnationality of cinema. This insightfulness is proof that the Irish migration process is dynamic and that well developed diasporas do in fact create their own autonomy.

• 22 Sara Keating, although coming from the milieu of theatre, highlights McDonagh’s artistic position a (...)

24Although In Bruges transcends the recurring ‘identity’ paradox associated with national cinema and national culture,22 the age-old anxieties that surround ethnicity and nationality continue to be thrashed out and satirized but at last, constructively, from a global perspective. One persistent tendency within the film is that each of the various nationalities becomes the subject of ridicule. This is brought about primarily through the deliberate stereotyping of obese Americans, boring Belgians, violent Irish, arrogant British, law-abiding Canadians and Dutch prostitutes. Such overt stereotyping may initially seem disingenuous, yet its method brings to light the dubiousness of nationalism and the underlying dangers of patriotism.

• 23 Joan Dean remarks how “McDonagh’s comedy often emanates from the odd choices characters make about (...)

27One of the most obvious castigations in the film is of the obese American tourists who do everything the guidebook tells them to do. When a group of them innocently approach Ray in the town square, he ends up telling them they are “a bunch of fucking elephants”. Their subsequent aggression as they lash out in retaliation adds to their entrenched stereotype. The recent international reputation and global reaction to U.S. foreign policy is again reinforced when on two separate occasions, Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), the American dwarf, apologizes for his nationality. “Don't hold it against me”, he remarks, after Ken discovers on their first encounter that he is American. He relays the same message to Ray in the following scene. But owing to his physicality, Jimmy is already subject to discriminatory comments. He is already coming to terms with a sense of ‘otherness’.23 Despite the fact that he himself has latent racist tendencies and although the militarized aggression of the Bush era is obliquely reflected through the knee-jerk retaliation of the tourists, the unreserved vulnerability that is portrayed in Jimmy’s character prompts the audience indeed not to perpetuate negative stereotypes. Although the tourists are undermined, their initial amicableness and Jimmy’s apologetic portrayal positively confirms the openness and friendliness of Americans and the fact that not all of them should be tarred with the same brush.

• 24 Dervila Layden cautions that although contemporary Irish comedy is in the process of challenging ou (...)

32Although In Bruges also engages with the stereotypical versions of the Irish character by making them a spectacle, it subsequently destabilizes their clichéd overtones by allowing them psychological expression. The troubled Irish with a proclivity for alcohol and violence is personified through Ray’s character, yet his proverbial ‘chip on the shoulder’ manifests as isolationism, ethnic intolerance, crudeness and dark cynicism. Even though Ken is similarly troubled, his inner turmoil isn’t outwardly expressed to the same extent; he is more self-assured and his obvious redeeming qualities support a more optimistic evolution of the contemporary Irish male. In this sense, the stereotypes are not being perpetuated,24 but rather given a platform on which their underlying causes can be teased out.

• 25 Gould, Allan. “An Anthologizer’s Comments About Our Community Gifted Countrypersons”, See http://ww (...)

33Like Harry, Ray’s view of society is over-simplistic. Ray observes history and its place in the world as worthless, purporting that “it’s all just a load of stuff that’s already happened”. He openly admits to not knowing or caring much about it, in which case his patriotism is unfounded. But his lack of concern backfires. The guilt he endures, the rejection he suffers, the insularity he carries, plus his innate desire to belong makes him a prize candidate for bigotry, patriotic bias and ethnic intolerance. Ray’s xenophobia is prevailing. This is reinforced when, prior to violently attacking a Canadian couple in a restaurant, he mistakes them for Americans and accuses them of waging war on the Vietnamese. He assaults them a second time for the assassination of John Lennon. Ironically, the fact that other nationalities are perceived to know very little about Canada is often used as self-deprecating humour by Canadian comedians.25 The Canadian dialect is persistently mistaken for American in which case interpretations of culture are not only subject to subtle phonetic variations but also exist within a fragile space at the behest of socio-linguistic complexities. Nuances of language play a major role in the occurrence of stereotyping. Therefore, to a certain extent Ray does not belong to a minority; rather, he symbolizes the masses and its pervasive insidious misuse of generalizations.

• 26 In this case, Hourigan was referring to Americans who daily reinstate their nationality, yet when t (...)
• 27 cf Walker Connor, 1994, p.206, Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism, p.162. 

34Stereotyping is a global phenomena; indeed, the fact that we laugh at it so readily is evidence of it ubiquity. It is automatic and reactive, in which case it easily fosters thoughtless patriotic beliefs that are expressed beyond the perimeters of language. As sociologist Niamh Hourigan suggests, “benign patriotism” is often the most dangerous as it is sometimes a prerequisite for underlying aggression.26 Malevolent acts often arise from misunderstandings and are executed out of reactionary emotion as opposed to any premeditated objective. In the words of Walker Connor, “men don’t allow themselves to be killed for their interests; they allow themselves to be killed for their passions”.27 And so, civic nationalism, with all its apparent respect for democratic values and the ethnic other can also be dangerous at a fundamental level.

• 28 Bosch’s works symbolise the hideous “consequences of human folly”. See Sharp, Henry J. Art History (...)
• 29 Kren, Emil and Daniel Marx, The Web Gallery of Art, Last Judgement, Groeninge Museum, Bruges. See h (...)

36This dichotomy is accentuated when Ken and a recalcitrant Ray visit the Groeninge Museum and become intrigued by the Last Judgement, a sixteenth century triptych supposedly illustrated by Hieronymus Bosch.28 To Ray, all the other paintings are “rubbish” except this one, but only because it relates to his own experience. The work symbolises “the all besetting evil and perennial human stupidity that render the world a hell even before the day of divine judgement”.29 Although Ray is already smitten by the representation, he innocently prompts Ken to explain it to him in more detail. He is genuinely moved and is in no way feigning sophistication. Ray’s reaction verifies that the magnitude of one’s vocabulary has little to do with one’s experience of art. As a result, he is freed, if only momentarily from the gangster-ridden pigeonhole that incarcerates him. Consequently, the attractiveness of Bruges is not only limited to its physical splendour or ancient culture; rather, it acts as a character in its own right, questioning our set beliefs.

• 30 Brian Appleyard states that the middle classes emerged through increased economic complexity; thus (...)

37In Bruges then reconsiders the coexistence of the supposed ruffians and the invented middle classes,30 and in many ways shows, in spite of appearances, that they do in fact share a common rhythm. The overlapping of cultural interests and criminal activity in Ken’s case is the first implication of this. Yuri’s (Eric Godon) residence which overlooks the picturesque canal is strewn with semi-automatics and collected antiques and Chloё’s double life as a production assistant come drug dealer/thief reinforces this association. However, the merging of Harry’s cockneyisms with his desperate need for economic self-endorsement confirms it beautifully. Harry has got the house in the country; he has the wife and the kids, the Japanese au pair, yet in order to fulfil his social aspirations, he kills people for money. His desperation symbolizes the ambition but also the anxiety that is part of becoming upwardly mobile. His irritation at the possibility of failure is brilliantly emphasised when after things don’t go according to plan, he smashes a phone violently and reverts to calling his wife “an inanimate object”. For all his apparent wealth and ability to maintain the status quo, he becomes lost in human anguish. The desperation of the criminal is thus, shown to be the effect of something greater than his own personal dilemma.

• 31 Matthew. Crosston, Shadow Separatism, Implications for Democratic Consolidation, p.3.
• 32 Crosston, p.9.
• 33 Eamonn Jordan, "War on Narrative: The Pillowman", TheTheatre of Martin McDonagh, A World of Savage (...)

39According to Matthew Crosston in his study, Shadow Separatism, “ethnic identity and economic status play a [huge] role across the globe in the emergence and resolution of conflict”.31 Crosston also points out that “ethnicity impacts democratic transitions only as much as the institutions chosen to develop democracy constrain or enhance conflict”.32 In other words, the problem of ethnic conflict exists from the chain of command to the ground. In a study of McDonagh’s play, The Pillowman, Eamonn Jordan proposes that the “drama establishes the regimes through which citizens are recruited, indoctrinated and interpellated by systems and structures”.33 According to Jordan, it is difficult “to evade the distinctive practices of the state, which ultimately foist positive aspirations and false realities and illusions before its populace”. “Such citizens”, he adds, “become most likely […] misguided and beguiled agents of the state” (176).

• 34 See Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism, p. 125.
• 35 Smith, p.125.
• 36 Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism, p. 35.
• 37 Tamir, p. 32.

41Forming mass allegiances or advocating collective groups or clusters is the mission of nationalist ideology, be it ethnic, ethno-cultural, political or civic, and a fundamental component of nationalism in whatever form is the classification of one group by another. Yet each cluster forms radically different moral perceptions depending on their social position. Historically the intelligentsia have exerted power over the populace through developing a system of national institutions. Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm states that “nations are quite recent constructs” by “elites bent on preserving order in the turbulence of late capitalism”.34 Elie Kedourie denounces nationalism as an artificial construction by elites who “tap the emotions of the masses and provide them with social and psychological security”.35 However, in a study entitled Liberal Nationalism, Yael Tamir suggests that “the liberal tradition, with its respect for personal autonomy, reflection and choice, and the national tradition, with its emphasis on belonging, loyalty and solidarity […], can indeed accommodate each other”.36 Tamir is of the opinion that “the liberal tendency to overlook the value inherent in nationalism is mistaken”.37

• 38 McDonagh, M. ‘Martin McDonagh and Colin Farrell on In Bruges’ Interview with Ed Caesar. The Sunday (...)

42But In Bruges demonstrates that the exclusivity within national institutions does not suffice for all members of society. People will inevitably interpret the establishment as intrusive, an imposition to their freedom and as a result, become marginalised. Categorization at a class, cultural or ethnic level is a precondition for prejudice, conflict and racism. To nationalise is to categorize. To categorize is to create a divide. At a mild level nationalism draws allegiance but also separation. At a more moderate level, it instigates patriotism but also division. At its most extreme it constitutes autocracy and bloodshed. McDonagh purposely wrote Ray’s character as someone lovable “who had no self-censorship, who was unaware of what could be offensive”.38 Even though Ray displays extreme patriotic beliefs he has no understanding of national doctrines in terms of their autocratic force, nor does he have any inkling to question them. His attitude to European languages and culture corresponds to a colonized mindset whitewashed by the compliance of national institutions that insure the dominance of linguistic imperialism.

• 39 The reference here is to Martin Heidegger, the famous German philosopher who is well known for his (...)
• 40 Anthony Quinton, "Political Philosophy", The Oxford History of Western Philosophy, ed. A. Kenny, p. (...)
• 41 Kenny, p. 340.
• 42 Kenny, p. 356.
• 43 Smith, p. 33.
• 44 cf. Ernest Gellner 1983, p. 57, Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism, p. 33.
• 45 In a recent publication, Fintan O’Toole charts the disintegration of national institutions and the (...)
• 46 Andrew Vincent, Nationalism and Particularity, p.108.

45Ironically the romanticism of the eighteenth century philosophers Fichte and Hegel, and the premise of the ‘pure’ fatherland from which nationalism arose was indeed a philosophical hypothesis which later became misconstrued by political elites.39 Anthony Quinton refers to the ‘highmindedness’40 of Fichte which saw his nation as being “particularly qualified to conduct a mission of cultural and moral regeneration to the world”.41 Quinton later describes the “intellectual currents” of these philosophers as “precursors to fascism”.42 Ernest Gellner also speaks of nationalism’s imposition of its ‘garden’ culture “on the population of the state [...] us[ing] whatever of the old ‘wild’ cultures that it requires”.43 “Contrary to its folk idiom and romantic self-image, nationalism ‘is essentially the general imposition of a high culture on society, where previously low cultures had taken up the majority...’”44 In this case, and although its eradication is unlikely, nationalism’s inability to properly integrate a majority and its incompatibility with those on the fringe, who reject this ‘garden’ culture for whatever reason, is an indication that it must not be granted free reign.45 In the words of Andrew Vincent, “nationalism is a contemporary inevitability, which should be minimised”.46

• 47 Tamir, p.38.

46Although the criminals in In Bruges do not constitute a privileged minority, nor do they enjoy psychological or social security, they too have identified themselves in terms of their dissimilation or separation; in this case they are tarnished by what they perceive to lack. They are, thus, “the misguided and beguiled agents of the state”, the disillusioned. They are a realm unto themselves, yet their concept of ‘nation’ does not constitute belonging, loyalty and solidarity as liberal enthusiasts might engender. Gunfire is their voice, the definitive voice of frustration. Consequently, in its allusion to ethnicity and national stereotypes In Bruges demonstrates that “membership in a nation” does not always unify or “promise individuals redemption from personal oblivion” as Tamir hoped.47 As it weakens racial and class divides, social internationalism with an adherence to cultural diversity is by far more conducive to ethnic tolerance and social cohesion.