New Political Film Review: "'Barley' Explores Angst of IRA's Early Days"

[Up2Late]

(I wasn't sure if I should post this here (DU: Politics), but since it's a "political Struggle" film, I thought it might be O.K.. The text of this review doesn't do justice to this film, the audio clips they used for this story are great. This sounds like the best Irish Struggle" film since the film
"Michael Collins" (1996) <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117039/>)

'Barley' Explores Angst of IRA's Early Days

Listen to this story... (at link)
Morning Edition, March 16, 2007 · Acclaimed British director Ken Loach has gotten high praise and angry criticism for his new film The Wind that Shakes the Barley.

For Loach, the personal is always political — the political, personal. Loach is the dean of British independent filmmakers and he has the gift of finding private emotions in public dilemmas. That's just what he does with his fine new film.

Barley is set during the Irish independence movement of the early 1920s. That era is still so controversial that some British newspapers savagely attacked Loach for making this film, which stars Cillian Murphy as a young man who forsakes a medical career to join the Irish Republican Army.

In fact, the controversial scenes — which show the British Army resorting to torture — are the least-interesting aspects of this work. For The Wind that Shakes the Barley turns out to be a complicated, dramatically potent story. It's concerned not with how bad the British were, but with what the wrenching personal cost of fighting fire with fire was for the Irish.... (more at link)

More info here too: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460989/>