Ken Loach is a man of fighting words: “We're still hearing the words reform and modernization when what we really mean is privatization and public greed,” and his latest film, “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” is a fighting film, sort of.
In fact, it is a film about war that refuses to glorify war. It is all about the self-hatred and random, senseless bloodshed that is the stuff of war with none of the heroics and special effects. The soldiers are country blue collar workers who are goaded into war by repeated humiliation at the hands of unchecked, untrained and seemingly brainless local militia forces. They train in their street clothes, tromping around in the countryside with wooden rifles and tweed jackets, until they get the real thing. Once they get the real thing there are a lot of bullets fired for the few that manage to find their mark and the discipline is, well, relative.
The story revolves around two brothers, Teddy and Damien. Teddy (Padraic Delaney) has returned home from seminary and Damian (Cillian Murphy--“Red Eye,” “Breakfast on Pluto”) is on his way to a medical internship in London. But things are getting out of hand in 1920s Ireland and the time has come to fight; so reluctant fighters the two become.
Multiple award winner Ken Loach has produced another winner in this slow and steady look at citizen soldiers, the film itself garnering the Cannes Golden Palm in 2006 as well as numerous other nominations for Loach as well as screenwriter and frequent collaborator Paul Laverty. The acting is thorough and workman-like, if not overly exciting, but continues the honesty and political potboiling that many expect, and love, about Loach. The man takes no prisoners.
It is hard to make a war movie that doesn’t glorify war. Especially if one is out to sell some tickets and perhaps make a profit. “Saving Private Ryan” is the most famous recent war film and one that glorified the daylights out of war. “Jarhead” came closer to exposing the “hurry up and wait” aspect of war and the random death that comes from routine order. “Das Boot” and “All Quiet on the Western Front” come to mind, although they are dated and narrow in their view.
Loach’s view of war is profoundly political; he believes that war, civil or otherwise, is political struggle. In either event, his purpose in making this move is to write about political change, how it happens and how we know when it must happen. But he is careful to show that those who live by the sword, die by the sword.
In the end, the sacrifice of life comes along with the sacrifice of honor, although both are as unavoidable as the winds of change themselves. Both are a part of moving towards self-governance and away from the evils of imperialistic political rule governed by greed and prejudice.
The director has put his money where his mouth is in declining to accept the Order of the British Empire saying, "I turned down the OBE because it's not a club you want to join when you look at the villains who've got it. It's all the things I think are despicable: patronage, deferring to the monarchy and the name of the British Empire, which is a monument of exploitation and conquest."
So if your politics are liberal and you want to see a film about war that doesn’t glorify war, this is for you. Unfortunately, if you want to see a film that also doesn’t glorify film, this may be the film for you too.
Many of the shots are taken indoors in the most marginal of dim light. Realistic? To the core. But it gets old. The outdoor shots all appear to have been taken on cloudy days immediately before a rain. The costumes might just as well be random clothing collected from working class commuters in any town in Ireland. The sound track is nonexistent---essentially, there is no music.
An extremely legitimate work of narrative fiction but one that will appeal to a small audience to its obsessive political activism and borderline National Geographic presentation.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Opens March 16, 2007 MPAA: Unrated
Your Talkback on this Story