In(visible) Bruges by Martin McDonagh

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which In Bruges by Martin McDonagh constitutes the cinematic Bruges. It explores the peculiarities of the narrative and the ways intertextual references are made to the artworks associated with the cultural history of Bruges (Flemish painting, Georges Rodenbach’s novel Le Carillonneur) and the references to the texts which bear no relation to the history of Bruges (films on Venice, other cinematic texts, literary texts by McDonagh). The exploration of these narrative devices reveals that the interfusion of different discourses revitalizes and changes the ‘Bruges myth’ which occurs in a hypertextual dialogue with the ‘Venetian myth’. The analysis of hypertextual dialogue shows the essential difference between the two textual cities. Instead of the excess of the visible, typical of representations of Venice, the film introduces the principle of the limitation of the visible as the main feature of Bruges. This inspires the conclusion connected to the model of travelling which In Bruges proposes.