A brutally violent directorial debut, Christopher Andrews’ rural Irish drama “Bring Them Down” veers between pitch-black humor and pervading melancholy. A tale of fathers, sons, and mutilated sheep, it toys with narrative point of view in “Rashomon”-like fashion, but keeps pressing questions of masculinity and cycles of sadness hovering just out of view. Fittingly, like its emotionally stunted male characters, it doesn’t confront these notions head on, but lets them quietly build in the form of a simmering blood feud that feels all-encompassing in the moment, but upon taking a step back, reveals a pitiable quality.
A brief but distressing prologue — told through alternating chaos and silence —
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