Boring. If someone calls something boring, I get nervous. Why boring? Saying “boring” is the defense mechanism of schoolchildren and teenagers who don’t feel like doing anything. For the rest of us, boring indicates ducking behavior and a lack of imagination.
I’m afraid boring, it destroys everything.
When is something boring? If someone says it, the boat is already on, that’s all it takes, the crumbling begins. I see it happening in Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle, where the exhibition Brave New World is dedicated to ‘sixteen painters for the 21st century’. Exciting. Then I hear someone say ‘boring’ and walk past a painting by Akunyili Crosby from Nigeria without looking further. ‘Boring’ is contagious, I almost keep walking too. But I see something. What’s happening over there? I bend over to take a closer look. And be overwhelmed by photos from newspapers, albums and what not that Crosby has, as it were, kneaded in the painted leaf green. I step back. Now I see a painting buzzing with clues, while that whole “boring” drifts away in greenery and thoughts. This painting demands attention, just like all those other paintings. Even if they seem ‘easy’, there is more to be gained than you initially saw.
Boring does not exist. Say “boring,” and you’re playing it safe. Then you don’t experience anything and that’s your own fault.
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Also read the review of ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’: ●●●●●
But it can hurt, that’s what the film brings me The Banshees of Inisherin bee. It’s about a man’s friendship, I read. Another movie about one bromance, about dudes hugging and the girls don’t want to join them, yes, the bromance is a convulsion of patriarchy. Oh well, we’ll see, I’m going to see that movie because it’s by Martin McDonagh (his brilliant play The Pillow Man was played here in 2005. Stage people, shall we again?). And I’m going because I want to see Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson act. Separately not to be sneezed at, together a revelation.
Here too, but the film rattles me. In an Irish hamlet, an elderly farmer wants nothing more to do with his best friend. The reason? “I don’t like you anymore.” Why not? “You’re dull.” ‘Dull’ is worse in English: dull. With a dull ‘u’ in the middle and a lazy ‘l’ at the end. Dull rhymes with aai, dull is a stub, a left hook. “I’m not boring,” says the bewildered ex-boyfriend. And his sister strongly confirms: he is not boring. No, he is not boring, the film audience knows that too, because they have seen him walking with his pygmy donkey in tow. And by the way Colin Farrell plays him, hypersensitive and with dancing eyebrows, you don’t get them more boring.
But the damage has been done. The word boring has been dropped. Now the horror is knocking on the door.