Knuckle
Knuckle is a brilliantly brutal and intriguingly insightful look into the bare-knuckle fights staged between a series of Irish Traveller families as they prolong a long-running feud. (...) Impressively and compulsively shot, Ian Palmer’s film is a fascinating glimpse into a world kept usually very private and certainly just within the Travelling community.
Mark Adams, Screen International
(...) [I]t's easy to accept Palmer's conclusion that the problem he's showing us may well have no solution. Watching the film, it's possible to experience all sorts of reactions – excitement, revulsion, a certain grudging respect -- yet what it leaves us with is a profound sadness. Call it outsider condescension, but there's something deeply dispiriting about spending time with people whose options in life seem so limited by a cloddish tribal order that forces them – and inevitably, their children – to perpetuate a neverending cycle of unexamined hatred and bodily harm. There's no escape, and perhaps no desire to. They fight, therefore they are.
Justin Chang, Variety
Duration: 93 min
Dialogue: English
Age limit: K15
