The Wind That Shakes The Barley on DVD (2006)

Gethin Payne from Manchester, England , 05/07/2006

This is Ken Loach's interpretation of the struggle for independence in Ireland filtered through his now familiar socailist agenda. The gritty realism is still present but he uses frantic mobile camera work to express the skirmishes. The bang of guns are made all the more chilling by the lack of a background soundtack. Cillian Murphy gives a wonderfully mannered performance imbued with frustrated idealism. If there is a criticism to be made it is that Loach tries to encompass too much. At times the films portray of events can be too simplistic and one sided. The English never evolve beyond sterotypes but this can be percieved as a reaction to the sterotyping of the IRA and the Irish over the years as shown in films such as Austin Powers. Without a knowledge of the political and cultural climate in the 1920's Britain the viewer could become easily bewildred. However there is a rich emotional core to this film and the main protaginists are well crafted characters.

It is a hard and harrowing film but that is what it was like to live in Ireland at the time. Viewers need to look past their modern day perception of the IRA as a terroist party and appreciate the idealism and genuine rationality behind their stance. Obviously the Barley are the Irish people and the Wind is the English. The wind cannot last forever, although it will blow away some of the barley, the rest will remain and the seeds they lay will lead to the regrowth of the Barley field. Very much what has happened in a now fully independent Ireland. Loach has made a thought provoking and polticially charged drama which I would recommend to everyone.

  78 out of 85 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

A customer from London, England , 11/10/2006

This is a wonderful film about the struggle for Irish independence. Yes it shows the well documented violence of the British army against the Irish but it also is honest about the splits within the republican molvement over the treaty. Only Loach can dramatise political debate like this. The acting is astonishing - I left the cinema weeping. As for the critics - this is not British bashing unless you identify the actions of our rulers with those of ordinary British people nor is it uncritical of republicanism.

  38 out of 44 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

Andrew McMenamin from London, England [Highly rated reviewer] , 15/05/2007

OK. First and foremost, this is a violent film. Not in the glamorous Hollywood style, but in a visceral, gritty and low-down way. But guess what? It is a film about two Irish wars, the War of Independence and the Civil War. And war is a violent thing.

Having said that, my wife couldn't sit through it and found it too hard to watch. She is sensitive to that kind of thing, but, as other reviewers have noted, the lack of a musical soundtrack allows a lot of sickening sounds to come through.

I found it realistic and well-researched. Sure, the British Army, and especially the Auxilliaries and the Black and Tans, are shown to be an especially brutal lot. However, it is generally accepted, from an Irish perspective at least, that they were actually an especially brutal lot. Bear in mind that most had served in the trenches of the First World War and it is not surprising that this brutalised them. The film picks up on this nuance in an early scene.

It seems to me that the Irish are also shown as cold blooded and ruthless, matching British savagery with a savagery of their own. Informers are killed without mercy. In the Civil War, old comrades turn on each other and brother turns against brother.

So, is this, as some others have claimed, a recruiting film for the IRA? Not at all. The overwhelming feeling I had was one of sadness. In its reshaping of a political landscape, war destroys much and the film shows the people on the ground wrestling with whether it was worth it.

For me, it showed the historical facts at a very local level. The happenings in far-off Dublin seem distant; the negotiations in London might as well have been on another continent. In its aim to show the effects of guerrilla war and civil war on a local community and in its exposition of what ordinary life was like against the chaotic backdrop of the passing of an established power through a revolutionary war, this is a revealing and thought-provoking piece of historical fiction.

Finally, some others have commented on the accents and suggested subtitles. It is true, the accents are sometimes hard to penetrate. But they are accurate for that part of West Cork and Kerry, and I'd far rather that then watch another Hollywood star mangle his lines in a stage Oirish accent. Oh yeah, and the disc does have subtitles. Just turn them on if you need them.

  24 out of 26 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

George Wilson from liverpool [Highly rated reviewer] , 08/09/2006

powerfull,well acted,and very well made.Shows the tit for tat goings on in the early 1920`s in Ireland and how ruthless it was on all sides,a film everyone must see,not hollywood-ised just simple filmmaking at it`s best.

  19 out of 20 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

becstwinkle from Stonehouse , 25/08/2008

A thoughtful well made British film that really makes you think about the bias propoganda us English have been fed about the conflict in Ireland.

Read all highest rated reviews