I watched The Banshees of Inisherin today and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not the most uplifting film, but a very well put-together dark slice-of-life with a vein of humour running through it.
It's about an irish man on a tiny island and his older best friend who suddenly and brutally ends the friendship to spend his remaining time on loftier goals (music) than talking to a "local dullard". Things naturally escalate from there.
Not the most riveting concept, but the movie does an excellent job with its storytelling and literary devices and filmography, as well as a good job capturing the pettiness and childishness than can poison relationships. It touches on a lot of other smaller topics but this was the big one for me.
It got me ruminating on a time I cut someone out of my life unexpectedly (to them). I don't regret removing them from my life, but I feel the way I did it -- unexpectedly and mercilessly with no discourse or recourse -- was unfair and childish on my part. In wanting to avoid difficult confrontation I not only burned the bridge but likely poisoned the water in the process.
In the film, proximity plays a large part in the characters' challenges -- being in a tiny village with a limited population makes it difficult to cut someone off or stay away from one another.
These days the whole world is a village, and I'm sure I'll eventually be forced to interact with this person again and it's going to be terrible and awkward on account of my past actions.
I guess that's the thing about burning bridges: it's only a mechanism to dissuade yourself from going backward. Nothing's preventing the poor bastards on the other side from building a boat and coming after you for messing up the village infrastructure and water supply.