Knuckle debuted at Sundance to mixed reviews but the rights to this documentary were quickly snatched up by HBO in prospect of creating a dramatic mini-series based on the brutally gripping events documented by Ian Palmer. Knuckle documentarian Ian Palmer filmed two feuding Irish travelers families for twelve years and eventually created this no-holds-barred documentary that neither answers nor criticizes the events it displays on-screen. Palmer simply throws the facts and impartially edited video footage onto the screen for the audience to create their own opinions about what they are watching.
Palmer unknowingly began filming Knuckle in 1997 when he was hired by a friend to film 18 year-old Michael Quinn McDonagh’s wedding. It was at this wedding that Palmer caught a glimpse into the Quinn McDonagh feud with their cousins the Joyces. Both the Quinn McDonagh and Joyce families identify themselves as “travelers.” Travelers are basically in-bred white trash families of gypsies that relocate around the United Kingdom from trailer park to trailer park. So when you read “travelers” think in-bred nomadic trailer park trash.
The McDonaghs and the Joyces have been feuding since an incident outside of an Irish pub in the early nineties. During the inciting incident two Joyces died and one McDonagh was convicted of and later imprisoned for manslaughter. Some members of each family refer to the event as an unfortunate incident while many of the Joyces say it was a classless and sheepish act of violence on the McDonagh family member’s part. Either way, Palmer does not aim his documentary at settling this irrational argument, but instead uses the footage that he accumulated over the years to inspect the on-going feud between the two Irish travelers clans.
Since the mid-nineties the two families of cousins, who were once amicable, have been sending videotaped threats and challenges to bare-knuckle fighting matches. After the opposing family receives a challenge, the two families phone each other and negotiate a place, time, and sometimes a wager for the fights. The fights are usually held at a time that neither family came into the negotiation wanting and in an isolated parking lot or on a backcountry road. Other than the fighters from each family (anywhere from one to seven fighters per meeting – each match is strictly one-on-one though) no family members are allowed to be present at the bare-knuckle matches in order to prevent any potential brawling. A neutral referee, or referees, is agreed upon by both families to make sure a fair fight is properly regulated.
Though the Quinn McDonaghs and the Joyces absolutely despise each other, each fight has strict rules of fair play that the fighters must obey by, otherwise the neutral referee(s) will disqualify the perpetrator in violation of the rules. The rules seem to be no biting, no head butting, no hitting each other when tied up together, and no hitting of an opponent who’s knocked off of his feet. The fights are well regulated by the referee(s) and losers are told to have no shame in their loss, as long as they fought fairly.
The bare-knuckle boxing matches between the families are perpetuated by angry old grandfather’s whom actually remember the reason why the feud started, as well as, prideful young men whom have lived their lives waiting for the day they get the chance to be like their fathers and brothers and fight for their family name against the opposing clan of travelers. Throughout the documentary the audience is shown what feels like an endless amount of videotaped challenges showcasing a member, or members, of each clan boasting their family’s name and degrading the opposing family’s name. As each new generation of young boys are born into the two families and raised in this culture, the feud only becomes more distanced from the original motives behind the bare-knuckle boxing matches. By the time the viewer sees the newest footage of the fights it as though each family has lost complete sight of why the feud started in the first place. It has merely become a name-calling video challenge answered by the strongest in-bred alpha males of each family.
The main character of the documentary is James Quinn McDonagh. He is the most successful fighter (i.e. he has the greatest fighting longevity of either family) and possibly the most rational male of either family. James started out fighting for pride and his family’s name after the feud began in the early nineties but he now fights to earn money for his clan. There seems to be an endless amount of Joyces who want to knock James “The Mighty” Quinn McDonagh off of his high horse in order to shut the rest of his family (the equivalent to a cult-like fan club) up. Each Joyce generation of males wants a chance to defeat “The Mighty Quinn” in a match, but the closest they get to bringing him down is an exhausting two hour battle in which James comes out on-top.
Palmer’s documentary instills a sense of helplessness in the viewer as they watch two in-bred cousin families perpetuate a senseless feud over pride and sometimes money. The viewer can only relate to the women of each family, as they are granted a small glimpse into the female perspectives of these fights for a brief moment during the film. The women clearly want the feud to end because it has gotten so out of hand and each side of prideful males has lost sight of what they were once arranging these bare-knuckle boxing matches over. There is nothing to be settled anymore other than pride. A fight over pride with new challenges being sent several time a year isn’t going to solve the feud between the two traveler clans.
When watching Brad Pit play a gypsy pikey in Snatch one must think that his character is a heavily fictionalized character from the deep inner creative conscious of Guy Richie, but after watching Knuckle we see that Guy Richie isn’t as creative as we give him credit for. Characters like that of Brad Pit’s bare-knuckle fighting gypsy actually do exist in the United Kingdom’s countryside. Ian Palmer stumbled upon this feud and was lucky enough to document it for the Quinn McDonaghs over a twelve-year period. Eventually, he felt himself slipping into the thrill of watching the fights instead of documenting them. He decided to take a break from filming the fights before realizing that the world needed to see this footage edited together in a comprehensible yet unbiased manner.
It is fascinating how dependent the feud between the Quinn McDonaghs and the Joyces is on the video medium. Whether the traveler families use video cameras to challenge each other to bare-knuckle boxing matches or to document the matches for bragging rights, a video camera is now intrinsically intertwined in each step of the perpetuated feud. The documentary shows some of the older family members wanting to end the feud and move on from the feud while it also shows the new generations of Joyce and Quinn McDonagh males dream of getting their chance to one-day represent their family name in a bare-knuckle boxing match.
Directed by: Ian Palmer
Starring: James Quinn McDonagh and Big Joe Joyce
No comments:
Post a Comment