Vientos de libertad

For the past thirty years I have had a love affair with Ireland and over this time it has never failed to surprise, delight and humble me. This last weekend, much to my surprise, a small town cinema in deepest Hampshire, chose to screen 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley'. I am not sure of its motives for doing so but it brought to this small Saturday evening English audience a stark reminder about the brutality of its colonial past and its recent mistreatment of one of its nearest neighbours. For me the beauty of this film is in its honest portrayal of the momentous events that took place as seen through the eyes of a small Irish community. What is not lost is the knowledge that these same actions, tensions and emotions are taking place in every other community throughout Ireland at this time and it is this common purpose that in the end provides the momentum that forces change. The film does not shy away from the level of brutality that is required to force this change through. For me the uncompromising use of dialect reinforces the small community aspect and constantly acts as a reminder to us English that the Irish were, and still are, culturally different from us and are proud of it. So, if you want to see for yourself then look up your local sleepy cinema and you may be as surprised as I was.

For me the film had an added dimension in that the same catalogue of events are still being played out on the world stage today wherever you have dominance by a colonial power over its neighbour. The same resistance builds against suppression and the common purpose creates the conditions for change. Once the realisation is understood that change is achievable the common purpose takes second place to the aspirations of various factions and the momentum falters while it turns in on itself and the bitter struggle for dominance is played out. This struggle may end in civil war, partition or both. Meanwhile, the colonial power endeavours to try to influence the outcome. Such are the dynamics of the human condition.

The remarkably low rating that this film has so far received (4.1 as of Thursday 8th of June) is indicative of its ability to raise the hackles of people who haven't even seen it. How can it be otherwise when the film has not yet been released? 135 people have voted; have all of these 135 people actually watched the film? Of course not. They're just voting on the basis of their perceptions or assumptions concerning its political agenda. IMDb voters are not alone in this; already Simon Heffer in The Daily Telegraph, Dominic Lawson in The Independent, Ruth Dudley-Edwards in The Daily Mail and Michael Gove in The Times are attacking a film they haven't seen (by their own admission). These attacks are the predictable reaction of empire apologists unable to abide the depiction of the dark and brutal underside of that imperial machine, or the suggestion that anyone on the receiving end of that brutality might be justified in rebelling against it. The title of Dudley-Edward's lazy hack-job says it all, really: 'Why does Ken Loach loathe his country?' Loach is a traitor, and must be punished, the rotter.

It's a pity that this political controversy seems poised to overwhelm discussion of the film, because it's an extremely able piece of cinema and deserves to be seen as such. Barry Ackroyd's cinematography is superb, ably capturing the beauty of the Irish countryside without indulging in it. We are rooted in a locale without being lavished with pretty pictures. The acting is also excellent. The charismatic Cillian Murphy carries the movie, but the support from Liam Cunningham, Orla Fitzgerald, Aidan O'Hare and Padraic Delaney is also commendable.

But it's the collaboration between Loach and his scriptwriter Paul Laverty that makes the film something like a masterpiece. The grim progress from the murder of an Irish youth to the growth of an armed I.R.A. campaign, with its attendant violence (shown in stark and horrifying detail) is expertly managed; the only let-up comes not far from the end, after the signing of the 1921 peace treaty. Loach tries to show the brief jubilation and relief that ensues, but in terms of momentum almost drops the ball. The pace is re-established in time for the inexorable tragic denouement, and the film's final emotional impact is considerable. The load is occasionally lightened by the odd touch of Loach's characteristic wry comedy, such as the belligerence of the opening hurling game, the teenage message-boy who loses his message, the melodramatic pianist accompanying the newsreel announcing the momentous news of the creation of the Free State.

One of the most disturbing scenes occurs when a group of I.R.A. men return from a successful battle and discover a farmhouse being attacked and destroyed by a group of British soldiers. The rebels, who have no ammunition left, are forced to look on, concealed in the bushes; they watch powerless as the farmhouse's inhabitants are abused. We watch along with the characters, just as helpless as they are. Why do we watch? Do we want to intervene, to play the hero and save the day? Do we perhaps enjoy it? The trouble with many so-called anti-war films, as Loach has said, is that they outwardly condemn the violence while at the same time encouraging (intentionally or not) a vicarious pleasure in the thrill of it all. We want to take part, we imagine how we would behave in such circumstances (of course, we usually imagine ourselves behaving with impeccable bravery and surviving to fight another day). This scene, rather than placing us in the thick of the action, forces us to occupy the position of impotent bystander. Perhaps this is what being a film-goer is all about: powerless voyeurism. As we watch the country tear itself apart in civil war, manipulated by a devious and callous colonial master, this point becomes all the more pertinent. A quietly devastating film.

An exciting piece of Ken Loach drama based on events that sparked the Irish war of independence. Despite being labelled 'anti-British' by critics born 60 years after these events took place, the incidents depicted in this film have in fact all been documented by the British government and are a matter of historical fact. Events such as the treatment of the local population at the brutal hands of the infamous convict drafted Black and tans force have all been recorded assiduously by both sides in the conflict. And the civil war that followed a decision to allow the mostly protestant north to be a part of the new British welfare state. A clash of ideals, deftly handled by Loach, it's a real pity that so many will have their minds made up before they've even seen the film.

Saw it at private screening too.

Editorial from a Cork newspaper sums it up well:

This wind shakes more than barley

In Ireland we are in rare position internationally when it comes to our media. Most of what we read, listen to and watch is usually interpreted in two perspectives, through our own media and through that of our near neighbours across the Irish Sea. There are other instances of large and small neighbours with a common language (Germany and Austria; USA and Canada; Australia and New Zealand), but nowhere is the penetration of the larger nation's media into the neighbouring market as pronounced as it is in Ireland. Viewership of UK TV stations and readership of UK owned newspapers in Ireland is at a level that makes them as significant to our view of the world as our own media. This breeds a familiarity with our neighbours that can make us Irish assume the British know as much about us as we do about them. Nothing could be further from the truth however as has been graphically illustrated by the reception given in Britain to Ken Loach's Palme d'or winning movie The Wind that Shakes the Barley. There is no question that this film makes the British forces look bad, but of course the reality as all Irish people know is that they were. In the UK normally reasonable and intelligent reviewers and commentators cannot cope with this depiction of occupying British forces as violent repressors of a largely defenceless native population. It has been described as unbalanced and portraying the valiant British soldiers in an unfair and unflattering light. The truth is that the vast majority of British citizens couldn't tell you where Galway is and why should they? They're ignorance of their own colonial past so close to home and denial of it shouldn't surprise us; it is not something to be proud of. This is not to attack Britain, but to remind Irish readers of UK newspapers and viewers of UK television that Britain is indeed a foreign country. They view the world through an entirely different perspective than us, and in truth our views are inconsequential to them. That's why Loach's film, which tells essential truths, will not get a general release in the UK. Despite the fact that Anglo-Irish relations are probably better now than they have ever been the truth about Britain's history in Ireland is something that they just aren't ready for, and probably never will be.

My family came from Clonakilty and were directly involved in the events portrayed. The film struck an authentic note in portraying the young men and their fight. Of course the British forces were shown as monsters in the film as part of the mode of telling the tale, but growing up listening to the stories of the fighters, tales of atrocities did not feature.

The technical detail in the film was accurate and quite excellent and for that reason it may be of interest to point out three anomalies.

First: the men sung the present Irish National Anthem when they were held in the barracks and they sung it using Irish (Gaelic) words. In fact, the popular republican song which became the National Anthem was called The Soldiers' Song and the words were (of course)in English. They went:

Soldiers are we, Whose lives are pledged to Ireland, Some have come, From a land beyond the waves, Sworn to be free, Once more our ancient sire land, Etc

The Gaelic words were not written until ten or fifteen years later and were then promoted by Government as part of the fiction of Ireland being Gaelic speaking. When I was in school in the 1940's we learned the original English version and although nowadays the schools teach the Gaelic words, very few people retain them.

Second: after the men came in from the ambush they were fed at the farmhouse, eating from round bowls. I never saw such a dish in use in Ireland until people started going to Spain on their holidays in the 1960's. We used flat plated or flat-bottomed soup plates.

Third: When asked when he was leaving for England, the young doctor said "at the weekend". He would have said "on Saturday" or "on Sunday". The word "weekend" meaning a segment of time only arrived when the weekend became a defined segment of time. When small farmers worked a seven day week, they had no "weekends" and did not have a word for them in everyday usage.

My word for this film is 'evocative'and it with this sense that it should be watched.