Starring: Cillian Murphy and Liam Cunningham
Director: Ken Loach
Rated: M
THE Wind that Shakes the Barley is Ken Loach’s best film for a long time.
It bears comparison with his 1995 award-winning Land of Freedom, his exploration of the Spanish Civil War.
Sometimes that film was weighed down by discussion and rhetoric. This time there are strong verbal arguments but they are well worked into the drama and the action.
The title comes from a 19th century poem, a muted lament for the loss of peace as the wind blows over the golden crops of barley.
The film itself is a powerful lament for lives lost in rebellion against the harsh, military occupation and its brutality in word and action, for brotherly conflicts and civil war, and the religious, social and political divisions that are still so potent today.
Loach immerses us in a village near Cork in the early 1920s and its surrounding countryside, invites us to suffer with the people, to ask ourselves what we would do in similar life and death situations, to try to listen to voices of reason that would work for freedom through temporary compromise, to hear the passionate arguments of fighters for immediate freedom (the forebears of the IRA).
Loach’s film is an anti-war war film.
By keeping us within the confines of a small group who symbolise what was happening all over the country, the film is able to offer universal insights while keeping the mind and the emotions focused on this group.
At the centre of the film are two brothers, the older
(Padraic Delaney), the leader of the rebels, the younger (Cillian Murphy), a recently graduated doctor.
Ultimately, they will take different sides for and against the treaty, which leads to a tragic ending.
Their struggles embody the confusion and struggles of the whole people. Both actors have charismatic presence.
Their struggle embody the confusion and struggles of the whole people.
