Carmen Bryce discovers Kneecap’s Better Way to Live.
It’s hard to imagine Gerry Adams and Michael Fassbender starring in the same movie but that’s the power of the Kneecap story.
Kneecap is the quasi-biopic of three lads from West Belfast who formed a rap group and became unlikely figureheads for the civil rights movement to save the Irish language from distinction.
At the heart of every good band biopic is the origin story and the film tells us that Kneecap was formed when childhood friends and drug dealers Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh and Naoise Ó Cairealláin were inspired to start rapping by local music teacher JJ Ó Dochartaigh, who discovered the band’s lyrics during a police interrogation where he was the Irish-language translator.
This isn’t far off the truth as the band did get its start when Óg Ó hAnnaidh was arrested for spray-painting ‘Cearta’ (Irish for ‘Rights’) the day before the Irish Language Act march in Belfast in 2022 and refused to speak English during the police interview.
If we start with the film’s closing montage, we see the incredible journey the band (stage names Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí) has been on since its formation back in 2017 and the waves they made along the way for rapping in Irish and, as Ó Cairealláin himself says, “talking about things that would get us kneecapped.”
“Every fucking story about Belfast starts like this,” Ó Cairealláin opens the film in a voiceover against real footage of car bomb explosions and violent protests.
Like the band itself, the film does deliver a political message and social commentary about the complexities of Northern Ireland but does so with frenetic energy and chaotic comedy that feels to the viewer, at times, like freewheeling down a hill on a bike without brakes.
This is director Rich Peppiatt’s feature debut after directing one of the band’s videos and it’s been said he was inspired by Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting to capture the anarchy of the drug counterculture and life on the fringes of society.
Like Trainspotting, we have a charismatic anti-hero as our narrator in Ó Cairealláin and a visual style that puts us in the middle of the instability like an up-the-nose camera shot to capture a coke-snort. There’s even a chase scene in Kneecap reminiscent of Trainspotting’s protagonist Renton (Ewan McGregor) running for his life against the backdrop of Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life.
That said, Peppiatt goes beyond this and has his own visceral way to put us in the middle of the bedlam with animated illustrations, a deepfake Gerry Adams, and the clever use of claymation to portray the effects of ketamine.
Kneecap has similar energy to other much-loved Irish/Northern Irish productions like The Commitments (1991) in the way it shows the power of music to inspire social movement and break down the walls of oppression, and The Derry Girls in its use of biting wit to examine the complex experience of the ‘ceasefire babies’.
The film stars the actual band members playing themselves, which was a risky move but they really hold their own amongst experienced actors like Josie Walker and Simone Kirby and even Fassbender who convincingly plays Ó Cairealláin’s father and former IRA member turned yoga instructor on the run.
‘What do we call an ex-IRA member turned yoga instructor?’ Ó Cairealláin asks us, referring to his father. ‘Bobby Sandals’ – poking fun at Fassbender who played fallen hunger striker Bobby Sands in Hunger (2008).
This says it all about how bold and unapologetic the film is in telling the band’s story, and they get away with it because it is their story –and it’s really funny.
Kneecap premiered at the Sundance Film Festival at the start of this year (the first film in the Irish language to do so) and was met with critical acclaim. A far cry from the band’s first single being banned from RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta because of its profanity and drug references.
Kneecap, the trio who made their start playing to empty pubs in West Belfast with a small cult following now have a massive international fan base and a hit film starring a Hollywood star under their belt. If you don’t love them, you’ll at the very least be curious about their next move.
In cinemas from 9th August 2024.
