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The Wind that Shakes the Barley

Shakes class lines

By CHRIS WANGLER | March 15, 2007

3.5 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for The Wind that Shakes the Barley

“With breaking heart when e’er I hear the wind that shakes the barley.”

The Palme d’Or winner at Cannes 2006, Ken Loach’s drama explores the tensions within an IRA guerrilla unit during the rebellion of 1920-’21. Two brothers (Cillian Murphy and Padraic Delaney), initially compatriots in a series of brazen ambushes, end up on opposing sides after the Republican leaders sign what some perceive as an unequal treaty with the British. The diminutive Murphy is powerfully understated as a conflicted medical student expected to commit acts of brutal violence; his patriotic speeches sparkle. Behind him is a cast of Loachian characters (teenage soldiers, farmhands, maids) who give voice to the director’s socialist reading of history. Although unfairly anti-British (the Black and Tans seem worse than Nazis), this is class-based filmmaking at its very best — a kind of rural counterpart to Neil Jordan’s film Michael Collins, with timely lessons about terrorism, poverty, and the long shadows of empire.

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