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The ambience in The Wind that Shakes the Barley is terrific, reminding one of the cobbled streets of Belfast. The film treads a chequered course to climax on a spine-chilling note, writes Ervell E. Menezes Anti-war
films come in various hues, from the sublime to the near-ridiculous
depending, of course, on the treatment meted out to them. But the
Irish problem, however, has come out with some real winners like for
example Terry George’s Some Mother’s Son and to a lesser
extent Michael Collins. Another such is Ken Loach’s The
Wind that Shakes the Barley, a devastating drama of war and its
harrowing repercussions. It won the Golden Palm in 2006.
Set in Ireland in 1920, it deals with the tragedy of two brothers, Damien (Gillian Murphy) and Teddy (Padraic Delaney), who are on both sides of the anti-Brit rebellion. While Teddy is already the leader of a guerilla squad fighting for independence, Damien, who would rather complete his medical studies, suddenly enlists with the guerillas because of a cold-blooded carnage perpetrated by the Black and Tans, those avowedly maintaining law and order. The brothers fight side by side until a truce is signed but the peace is short-lived and war resumes with a vertical division split, Irishmen against Irishmen and brothers against brothers. It is over two hours of rapt, absorbing drama. Director Ken Loach, whose Bread and Roses dealt vividly with the Mexican border problem does the same with the complex and timeless Irish dispute. From the training of the volunteers to the sporadic encounters to the talks that divide them, Loach is very much on the ball. "There’ll be clean shoes on your corpse," the soldiers who look down for clean ground, are told during training. The wooded forests form part of the backdrop as do the small villages. The ambience is terrific reminding one of the cobbled streets of Belfast where a little girl bounces a tennis ball in David Lean’s Ryan’s Daughter. After the truce, there are two voices. One the priest who says "there’ll be nationalising the 12 apostles next." The other about "the Catholic Church, without exception, sides with the rich." It is a chequered course the film treads to climax on a spine-chilling note. Gillian Murphy is
exceptional in the lead role virtually living every moment of it and
Padraic Delaney and Liam Cunningham provide adequate support. But it
is the vice-like grip director Loach exerts on the hearts and minds of
the viewers that makes The Wind that Shakes the Barley an
outright winner with the Brits turning out to be the biggest losers.
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