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The Wind That Shakes The Barley

A while ago, I was asked to talk about my favourite film. Now this is never an easy task. Not because I find discussing the things I’m passionate about particularly difficult, but because naming a favourite film in the first place is a rather daunting. Much harder than trying to pin down a favourite band or a favourite author. I could list any number of films that I’ve particularly enjoyed or that have had particular significance for me and I’m sure the budding film geeks out there will be queuing up to shoot me down for a fair few of them. Withnail and I would get an honourable mention, the Danny Boyle classics 28 Days Later and Trainspotting would be in there, The Warriors would be coming out to play, The Motorcycle Diaries, Crash, American History X, This Is England and Rabbit Proof Fence would make the final cut, as would The Lord of the Rings trilogy and possibly, depending on how I’m feeling, the Star Wars series. But if I had to pick one film, just one film, that from recent memory has moved me quite unlike any other and takes on a special contemporary significance, it would have to be Ken Loach’s 2006 Palm d’Or winning, The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley follows Damien (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Pádraic Delaney) O’Donovan through the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War that followed in its wake, depicting their journey as they fight side by side and then on opposing sides as circumstance tears them apart and each seeks radically different means to achieve their common ends of a free Ireland. It is at once the classic tale, common in fiction, of the parallel paths of two brothers that must ultimately diverge at right angles to one another with heartrending consequences, and also a powerful portrayal of the brutal realities of British rule in Ireland, the struggle against it and the civil war that all too often did divide brother from brother, splitting families and friends between supporters of the Anglo-Irish treaty that formed the Irish Free State as a British dominion and the Anti-Treaty IRA.

Whilst the film is quick to decry the iron fist of British imperialism, depicting as it does the everyday injustices faced by the Irish under the occupation of a foreign power and the naked brutality of the Black and Tans, this is not where its greatest strength lies. After all, these are questions with comparatively straightforward answers for a sympathetic audience. It would have been easy to have Damien played by Mel Gibson and make the film an Irish Braveheart. Much more difficult to deal with the deeper moral questions faced by those struggling against oppression and against their own consciences. And whilst one might cheer every Black and Tan – thoroughly dehumanised by their actions in the film – shot by Damien and his IRA comrades, I doubt anyone would find themselves cheering when Damien finds himself forced to shoot his very human childhood friend turned reluctant informant. It is harrowing scenes such as these that make us question our own sympathies and loyalties and whether the ends truly can justify the means.

The answer for Damien, who holds fast to his socialist principles, and no doubt for Loach as well, though not an easy one, is clear. The ends must justify the means for it is the right of all oppressed people to resist their oppressors. And this is where the film becomes more than simply a portrayal of the struggle against British rule in Ireland and instead takes on resonance for more recent struggles against oppression. When the question is raised how free and fair elections can be held in a country under the occupation of the greatest superpower on Earth, one wonders whether it is Ireland we’re talking about, or Iraq. And though some reviewers have been quick to criticise the film for the intentional parallels drawn between British rule in Ireland and the occupation of Iraq by British and American forces, for me its strength lies in its contemporary significance and the links it forges between these two great injustices. And when Damien rails against the Church’s support for Anglo-Irish treaty with the immortal words, “and once again, with honourable exception, the Catholic Church sides with the rich” it is a reminder of the timeless poignancy of the film and the lessons we must take from history. And when we have stripped away time and place, when the cultural context is removed, what’s left is a naked imbalance of power, the subjugation of one people by another and the inevitable resentment and resistance that this will foster.

“History is contemporary. Your understanding of history confirms what you think of the present.”

- Ken Loach