Shaken, not stirred (6/10)
Most of the debate surrounding Ken Loach's 2006 Palme D'Or winner seems to be concerning the historical accuracy of the plot. Whereas I wouldn't suggest that these arguments are not important, it seems most critics forgot to evaluate the actual film craft: the style, acting, use of music and camera work etc. I'm not qualified to talk about how truthful 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' is, except to say that it hardly seems as overly biased or unbalanced as some reviewers have pointed out. However, no one apparently has deigned to point out how utterly ordinary this film is. Propanganda or not, cinema can be a powerfully emotive tool but this is quite uninspired.

While 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley' is shot with relative lushness, Loach retains many of the economical prinicples of his filmmaking. The use of non-professional actors and semi-improvised dialogue, for instance, feels a little lacking when grafted onto a historical context, especially where melodrama takes over. In dealing with a small-scale guerilla unit and thereby localising the history to a human drama, we needed a script and actors who can deliver. Unfortunately, the characters are not greatly fleshed out beyond the kind of shouty sloganeering that we would expect from the political meetings that they are seen to attend.

That is the nagging paradox in the `Wind that Shakes the Barley, a film that is richly photographed but amateurishly dramatised. More of a fully realised sense of time and place, of the Ireland the guerillas were fighting for, of their cultural and spiritual difference to the British, would have made this a more engaging piece. As what we end with is a history lesson told as hectoring theatre - a little too didactic, too wooden, and not cinematic enough. While by no means a bad film, it's Palme D'Or win smacks a little of too much politics and not enough of filmmaking talent.

An Irish Perspective
I have to say I enjoyed this film immensely. I thought it brilliantly portrayed the struggle at the time and commend Ken Loach for tackling such a sensitive subject matter. The Black and Tans were notorious for their atrocities and we all grew up in Ireland listening to stories about them. They ransacked my Great-Grandparents' house and torched neighbouring villages. I am aware that they had come back from appalling world war one trench conditions and do realise that they were victims of the establishment in Britain at that time. Ken Loach could perhaps have considered that but the fact remains that their treatment of the Irish was for the most part brutal and ultimately he is telling an Irish story albeit at a particular point in time. Cillian Murphy is brilliant and Padraic Delaney is absolutely gorgeous. It's great to hear an authentic Cork accent on the silver screen too! I particulary liked the way Cillian visited the poor family as a Doctor and showed the appalling poverty that was prevalent in Ireland at the time.
The film might be a bit confusing if you haven't an iota of Irish history as really there were two civil wars going on. The one between the republican Irish and the Unionists (which obviously became a full blown civil war in the 60s and 70s) and then ultimately what the film depicts; the less famous civil war between the pro and anti-treaty forces following the War of Independence and the creation of the freesate (or what is now the Irish Republic) and Northern Ireland. Oh and just to set the record straight- an earlier reviewer commented that Ireland had agreed to the Act of Union with Britain in 1801. The vast majority of the native Irish did NOT have the right to vote in 1801. Under the Penal Law system Catholics could not vote or become an MP (among other things-see Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829) until the advent of Daniel O' Connell and Parnell much later. It is however an excellent film made by a very talented and great Englishman. I highly recommend it.

Emotional History
I am sure there are a number of details within this film that may not be completely accurate but the film does communicate well the difficulties for families within this period.

Tremendous
The Wind That Shakes The Barley is an interesting look at the early days of the IRA. Ken Loach's realistic style is perfect for an examination of this brutal conflict and the violence always seems terrifyingly real. The story of Damien and his family almost seems incidental at times but is ultimately very moving.
It is a true shame that movies like this have to be made out with the mainstream as they so often are so much more dramatic than the average Hollywood blockbuster.


A propaganda film with a predictable plot and weak acting
Many years ago, when I was a student, I saw a Soviet Russian film called, if memory serves right, The Happy Tractor Drivers of Kazakhstan. The film was set at harvest time, and at the climax, bronzed and beaming peasants brought in the wheat, singing as they did so. Everyone was sunny and blonde and blue-eyed, everyone was filled with almost inexpressible joy, and at the end, there was a paean of praise to Communism and the triumph of the Soviet system. Odd though it may seem, The Wind that Shakes the Barley reminded me very powerfully of that old Soviet film. It goes without saying that the IRA heroes of the film are very different from their Russian counterparts. Instead of being bright and sunny and happy, they are dark and miserable and wretched, and grumble a great deal about their plight under the unspeakably evil British. But the subtlety of characterization is almost identical in both films - the characters in both of them are cardboard cut-outs, and the acting in both is almost laughably wooden. Both films employ a desperately simple plot that is utterly predictable from start to finish, and both are tediously long. If you like unalloyed propaganda and hate the British, you will find this film irresistible. If you like blood-spattered brutality of the Sam Peckinpah variety, you will also find much to admire. But otherwise, unless you are a masochist, you would be best advised to pass it by.

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