Kneecap — a rambunctious riot of sex, drugs and Irish hip-hop

The story follows the rise of Belfast rap trio Kneecap in the wake of the troubles in Northern Ireland, as they careen somewhat inadvertently into the centre of a culture war over the survival of the Irish language. It’s a comedy-drama loosely based on the actual experiences of the band members — Liam Ó Hannaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh.

In an impressive (and bold) move by director Rich Peppiatt, the rappers were cast to play themselves in the film, despite none of them having any prior acting experience. The gamble paid off — they brought the same radical, unhinged energy to the roles that they do to their on-stage performances, holding their own alongside a supporting cast that included Hollywood A-lister Michael Fassbender, known for his parts in movies such as X-men: First Class and Inglourious Basterds.

Right from the get-go, the film is fast-paced and irreverent, introducing Ó Hannaidh as the (slightly unreliable) narrator reflecting on the childhood he and Ó Cairealláin shared as part of the “ceasefire generation” — those who grew up during the years immediately after the Troubles, when the conflict was supposed to be over but the scars left by decades of violence were still fresh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFYfp-hKxZQ&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ

The Troubles was a period of ethnonationalist conflict between the 1960s and late 1990s that saw Protestant unionists clash with Catholic nationalists over whether the province should remain part of the United Kingdom or become part of the Republic of Ireland.

Fassbender delivers a powerful performance as Ó Cairealláin’s father, Arlo, a former republican paramilitary who faked his death to evade British authorities. It’s Arlo who teaches the boys Irish as children, drilling into them the maxim, “Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom.”

Years later, in the late 2010s, the trajectory of the friends’ lives changes when a night at a drug-laden party is interrupted by the police and Ó Hannaidh is arrested. His refusal to speak anything but Irish at the station forces the police to bring in a translator — Ó Dochartaigh, then a music teacher at an Irish-language school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1J_DVutL-w&ab_channel=KNEECAP

The chance encounter sets the trio down a path of musical rebellion, as they seek to change the way the Irish language is viewed through the creation of a hip-hop group that pairs the old dialect with modern, vulgar and often highly politicised rhymes. In the background of their growing popularity, a far more above-board campaign for an Irish Language Act that would officially recognise the Irish language in Northern Ireland plays out in the political sphere.

The film is, in a way, a love poem to a language — if love poems were filled with profanity, fist fights and gratuitous ketamine use.

The band’s music features heavily throughout the movie, and the energy it brings to the project is infectious. You don’t need to understand Irish or love hip-hop to find your head bobbing along to the beat.

Behind the chaotic mix of lights, music and drug-fuelled spectacles that characterise the film, a poignant tale takes shape about the struggle for communities and families to heal in the wake of violent division. It unpacks themes of intergenerational trauma — the challenges faced by the young, trying to set up an identity in a country recovering from madness, and the old, realising too late the dangers of being unable to let go of the past.

Sometimes, things need to change to survive.

The film leaves you with the following warning — “across the globe, an indigenous language dies every 40 days”. It feels almost like a call to action. A reminder that those intangible bonds that bring richness and diversity to human communities — shared languages, cultures, values — should not be taken for granted, lest they disappear while our backs are turned.

Kneecap premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival on 18 January — the first film in the Irish language to do so — where it won the NEXT Audience Award. It won three awards at the Galway Film Fleadh, including Best Irish Language Feature Film. It will feature at the European Film Festival South Africa, which is running until 20 October. DM