The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach, 2006)
I knew I was watching an absolutely brilliant, amazing film about 15 minutes into it. The protagonist, Damien, a doctor on his way to London for a new job, witnesses two atrocities committed by British soldiers. The second atrocity happens on the train platform as he waits to catch his train. He hesitates, watching the soldiers from afar as they beat the train conductor for refusing to allow British soldiers on his train, as per the train union's mandate. This hesitation is purely external; we see the signs of stress on his face and in his halting gestures. As the soldiers depart, dejected, Damien approaches the fallen conductor to see if he's all right.
Abrupt cut. Close up on Damien's face as he swears an oath of loyalty to the Republican gov't and officially joins the Irish Republican Army, forsaking his new career as a doctor. With this magnificent, strong edit, Ken Loach frames the debate of the film. More importantly, he imparts what the film is not about: there is no internal debate about the morality of resistance. There is no hesitation to take the next step. The characters in the film and Ken Loach waste no time with that issue. It's a complete non-issue, and Loach doesn't even allow the audience to ponder it. A lesser, non-politicized director would've used the first act of the film to mull over whether or not fighting is the best thing. We would've seen the protagonist thinking it over, talking about it with his friends/romantic interest. Not Loach. Not in the best film of his career. Although I am an admirer of Loach, he has his weak-points such as a bit too much emphasis on melo-drama. But The Wind That Shakes the Barley has no such weakness.
The whole film is external. Loach doesn't use the trappings of classical narrative, with its emphasis on the individual, emotional feelings conveyed through sappy music, and self-obsession. Everything is externalized. The characters make their decisions through active debate. They take up arms through being victimized by the British. What they fight for is not an abstract cause, but the very culture that is externalized in everything they do. We never hear the characters yammering on about the glory of the Irish flag or politicians; to Loach, that would be too abstract. Instead, we hear them speaking Gaelic, playing hurling, singing traditional songs, living the way they have for centuries. That's what they're fighting for, and it is all shown externally. In fact, this is all done so subtly that we're not even aware of it at first.
For instance, the film opens with a group of young men playing hurling. A fine way to start the film, all fun and games. But the very next scene, we are given another view of that game when British soldiers arrive as some of the players arrive home. We then learn that that innocent game, a part of Irish culture, is considered a public meeting and as such, has been banned. Loach doesn't need to hide behind abstract ideas of patriotism and nationalism. Those are mere illusions compared to the physical, external match of hurling that we just saw and now know to be just one aspect of the culture that is facing extermination.
Loach also refuses to fall prey to the trap that has sucked so many other, lesser filmmakers in. When watching an historical period piece, especially one shot in such a picture-esque country as Ireland, we have grown accustomed to seeing endless, perfectly-composed shots of lush scenery as the director equates pretty pictures with good filmmaking. As much beautiful countryside there is in The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Loach never once lingers on it. Instead, we see the countryside as the IRA fighters do: as good terrain to train in, to hide in, and to set up ambushes in. The fighters even become part of the terrain, emerging from the fog, crawling through the tall grass, sleeping in the forest. In contrast, the British soliders seem at odds with the very land they have come to occupy. When patrolling through the woods in search of IRA columns, they look out of place and clunky with their heavy packs while the fighters look perfectly natural with their trench coats and scully caps.
However, Loach has also given a complex portrait of the IRA resistance, not simply a romantic ode to the fighters. Through Loachian devices such as extended discussions and debates, a la Land and Freedom, we see the divisions within IRA ranks, namely between those like Teddy, Damien's older brother who has a purely nationalist point of view and kisses up to rich businessmen to have their support (and money) for the fight, and those like Damien himself and Dan, who was a member of the Irish Citizen Army, participated in the Dublin Lockout where he heard James Connolly speak, and who takes a class conscious view of the struggle. He is not only opposed to British over-lords, but also to Irish ones.
Through these discussions, Loach actively draws the audience into the debate. While listening to the characters speak, we mull over what they have to say and listen to the counter-points. We are participating in the meeting. At one such discussion, the fighters debate the merits of the truce that had recently been signed. Teddy and his lot support the truce because it creates an Irish Free State. Dan and his lost oppose it because the Irish Free State remains in the British Empire, Irish still must swear loyalty to the crown, and British elites have merely been replaced by Irish ones. To this, Dan states that if the treaty is ratified, the only thing that will change is the accents of the bosses and the colour of the flag. When I heard that, I was so enraptured by the scene that I swear I almost started clapping along with the characters who supported that stance. My arms actually began to move before I remembered that I was sitting in a theatre, not in the meeting room.
One last thing I want to comment on, and that is the local focus of the film. Not only does Loach use non-actors who are local to County Cork to create his naturalist style, but the focus of the film is also entirely local. We know that the fighters are one part of a larger movement, but we also see everything from their point of view. There are no cutaways to London so we can see the politicians debating, there are no sub-plots which try too hard to portray every aspect of the conflict. It is only one small part of a larger struggle that we are privy to, and in this we are exactly like the characters. We find out about the terms of the new truce the same way the fighters do, literally: by seeing it in a cinema. The fighters learn that they are to still remain loyal to the crown because they are told that in a newsreel at the movie theatre in a brilliant bit of audience identification concocted by Loach.
I could continue, as I've been thinking about this film pretty constantly since I saw it last night, but I guess I'll leave it at that. Go see it as soon as you get a chance to. If tickets weren't so expensive these days, I'd go see it again.