Ken Loach is my homeboy

[sabotabby]

I just saw The Wind That Shakes the Barley. It's utterly awesome. I mean, it suffers a bit from Ken Loach's anviliciousness at the beginning, but it more than makes up for it in other ways.



"Our freedom must be had at all hazards. If the men of property will not help us they must fall; we will free ourselves by the aid of that large and respectable class of the community - the men of no property." - James Connolly

Essentially, it's a story of how revolutionary struggle can go very wrong. Loach himself, I gather, sympathizes with the anti-Treaty Republicans as the heirs of Connolly et al., but he characterizes their fight as impossibly idealistic, and makes the National Army no less sympathetic. By the end, there are no heroes, no villains, and no right answers—just a tragic march to an inevitable conclusion. It's a beautiful mediation on the politics of compromise, and one can see its echoes in contemporary political debates (as Fred Clark mentions in his post on Rwanda).

One one level, it's a straight-up condemnation of ruling class interests betraying working class interests within a nationalist war, and the limits of class collaboration, etc. But on another level, it forces you to wonder about what the alternative would be. And it's rather bleak in the latter respect, but I have to hand it to Loach for asking hard questions. It's the sort of movie that I wish every black bloc, more-radical-than-thou type would watch before opining on various national liberation movements. Because sometimes it's just that imperfect and messy and ugly, and Loach does a lovely job of conveying that, and of keeping rather sophisticated political questions very grounded in humanism.

Anyone else seen it yet?

---

In unrelated news, click here for a photo of what appears to be a three-way brawl between neo-Nazi Paul Fromm, members of the fascist JDL, and a cop that happened yesterday morning. I wish I'd been there. With popcorn.

Comments

[roter-terror.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an interesting movie. Until I learn more about Irish history, I'll pass on commenting more, but I will say that it's fairly obvious that the working class has no interest in any nationalist war, then, now, or ever. If that's a point that comes across in the movie, bravo, Loach!

Have you seen his film on the Spanish Civil War? I'm going to see that soon, I reckon.

[sabotabby]

It's not a point made explicit in the film, but since there's no way the workers can be anything but screwed, I think it's implied. I think you'd like the politics.

Land and Freedom is fantastic.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ex_cowboy/]

i've got it on my computer but still haven't watched it. love ken loach films.

[sabotabby]

I've seen embarrassingly few of them: Bread and Roses and Land and Freedom and this.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I've only seen B&R and L&F.

I am ashamed...

[theoldanarchist.livejournal.com]

to admit it, but I still have not seen that film. I get e-mail from Sinn Fein asking me when I'm going to do so... and I give no response.

Re: I am ashamed...

[sabotabby]

Can you e-mail them back and ask what they thought? I'm curious.

Re: I am ashamed...

[theoldanarchist.livejournal.com]

Oh lord, I don't have to. I can tell you that they loved it! Sending me e-mails telling me to go buy the movie immediately in the Sinn Fein bookstore

Seriously, there is a great deal of appreciation for a movie that tells the story straight---Neil Jordan did not do so with "Michael Collins," though I, at least, appreciate his attempt.

Re: I am ashamed...

[sabotabby]

I thought Michael Collins was okay but not great.

Re: I am ashamed...

[theoldanarchist.livejournal.com]

I still enjoy the film---I watch it every year sometime between St. Pat's Day and Easter, the bottle of Jameson's or John Power & Sons at my side---despite the numerous historical errors (Dev, for example, made mistakes, but he was in no way complicit in the murder of the Big Fellow), and the presence of Julia Roberts (!).

But, the plain truth is Neil Jordan is no Ken Loach.

[peterbilt-47.livejournal.com]

OK, to demonstrate how totally and willfully I am missing the point here, I will share my actual concern upon seeing the picture in the news article.

The one student there appears to be wearing a "Hollister" sweatshirt. Now, Hollister purports to be an old-school, dyed-in-the-wool southern california surf company. But this dude is in what, Ontario?

Maybe I was just hideously unobservant in my nine years there, but while I lived in Southern California I NEVER saw anyone wearing this stuff. I didn't see anyone wearing Hollister until I came back east. Even on my recent return visits to Southern Cal, I've only seen a very few people wearing it, and they were probably tourists trying to fit in.

Can anyone confirm or dispel my suspicions of total, eggregious poserdom on the part of this company?

[sabotabby]

As a member of the JDL, this guy is one of those types who has no doubt grown up in Thornhill (a suburb of Toronto) and claims to have fought in the IDF. So the sweatshirt is likely not the worst example of poserdom on his part.

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

I've really enjoyed all of the Loach films I have seen, though that is not one of them. Bread and Roses was powerful, and probably more accessible than most, and My Name is Joe is also pretty good (and amusing in that one needs subtitles to watch it, even though it takes place in England/Scotland).

[sabotabby]

I've been meaning to see My Name Is Joe. Supposed to be one of his best, innit?

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

It was the first one of his that I saw... dunno if it's considered his best or not.

I did however find a copy of it on VHS for a dollar, which would be awesome if I had a VHS player. Since I do not, I would be happy to send it your way, if you like. If you find a copy on DVD and have a burner, you'll know how to repay the favour :)

[sabotabby]

Seriously? That'd be awesome.

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

Actually, looks like I have both Bread & Roses and My Name is Joe on VHS. Shoot me your address and I'll mail them off to you, so long as the postage costs aren't too outrageous.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

It's on my DVD rental list, but as at the moment I'm working my way through West Wing, it might be a while before I get to it. Definitely looking forward to seeing it.

I tend to the view that Collins took what he could get when he could get it, but I don't really have a detailed knowledge of the situation at the time, so I won't pontificate on that one. :)

On a tangent, the Michael Collins song by the Wolftones (on the disc you sent me), there's a line that goes (at least according to all the lyrics sites) "Oh when will the young men a sad lesson spurn, that brother and brother they never should turn". That doesn't make sense. Surely it should be either "a sad lesson learn" or "Why do the young men a sad lesson spurn"? Ah well, song lyrics often fail to make sense.

[sabotabby]

I'm not sure what else Collins could have done, but then, it seems like he did the wrong thing anyway. *sigh*

Wolftones have all kinds of weird fuck-ups in their lyrics. I'd blame the oral tradition, but it's probably just alcohol. My favourite one is changing "come all ye dryland sailors" to "come all ye drunken sailors."

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Well, alcohol is kind of an oral tradition. It's taken orally, generally. Actually I rather suspect that an awful lot of variations in oral tradition may be down to alchohol. Drunken sailors is an improvement though. That's the great thing about oral tradition. Like an evolutionary process. Except no guarantee of survival of the fittest.

[hopita.livejournal.com]

I mostly hate the JDL (Zionism, Meir Kahane, etc.), but there's still a part of me that smiles whenever I hear that they've gone out and kicked some anti-Semitic ass. I wish there was a Jews Who Kick Ass group that wasn't so virulently pro-Israel.

[sabotabby]

Well, there's ARA. But I kind of enjoy watching fascists fight other fascists.

[hopita.livejournal.com]

The Aryan Republican Army?

[sabotabby]

Hee! I've never even heard of them. Nah, I meant Anti-Racist Action. (Or, well, Inaction, as the case has been lately.)

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Anti-Racist Action. (See history link.)

[begundan.livejournal.com]

There is something very troubling about the firing of a person over something he did in his life outside the workplace. It's hypocricy at one of its bests.

[sabotabby]

It's problematic, though not as much as them using anti-terrorist legislation that I utterly oppose to deport Zündel. I mean, the Ontario College of Teachers is an entirely illegitimate institution.

In the same way, he's a genocidal lunatic. I'd have hated to be Fromm's union rep.

[culpster.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen this one, but by the end of Land and Freedom I HATED Ken Loach. The whole dying-in-slow-motion-with-NOOOOOOOO was worthy of fucking George Lucas. The revolution will not be a soap opera.

I know I have to give the rotter another chance, I just won't be doing it at Cinematheque prices...

[sabotabby]

Okay, I hated that bit. But the rest was good!

[lopukhov.livejournal.com]

I would have liked to have been there, with cotton candy and chocolate.

[sabotabby]

It would have been fun if you'd been there!

[emak-bakia.livejournal.com]

Saw it and loved it. My thoughts are at my film blog: arizona_jules.

[sabotabby]

I did not know that you had a film blog.