Toronto Film Fest 2006, Day One
Sep. 7th, 2006 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedI'm starting slow this year, only one film on the first day, but it was a good one.
Title: The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Director: Ken Loach
Country: U.K.
P's Rating: Recommended
I've been looking forward to this film since I heard about its screening at Cannes and then read some of the denunciations and rebuttals about it going on in the British press this summer. Loach is a powerful and extremely political filmmaker, but while he doesn't shy from taking sides, he also doesn't fail to show the failure of both sides of a fight. The fight here is that of the Irish Republican Army to throw the British out of Ireland in the 1920's. The film follows the character of a young doctor, played by Cillian Murphy, who's politicized when he sees a friend killed by the Black and Tans for refusing to speak English, and a train driver beaten for refusing to carry British soldiers. Murphy's character learns to fight, takes on the English but then ends up fighting fellow Irishmen when he feels the treaty creating the Irish Free State has betrayed the struggle of the common people. This being a Loach film, there's a definite social agenda, with the landowners, English or Irish, seen as the ultimate villains. But even the landowners have their moments of humanity, and there's no simple solution seen. Both sides commit atrocities, with the final, shocking atrocity being committed by brother against brother. It's a thought-provoking film with great performances all 'round and made me yet again grateful that my great-great-whatever-grandfather decided to get the hell out of Ireland a couple of hundred years ago and leg it to Canada.
Title: The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Director: Ken Loach
Country: U.K.
P's Rating: Recommended
I've been looking forward to this film since I heard about its screening at Cannes and then read some of the denunciations and rebuttals about it going on in the British press this summer. Loach is a powerful and extremely political filmmaker, but while he doesn't shy from taking sides, he also doesn't fail to show the failure of both sides of a fight. The fight here is that of the Irish Republican Army to throw the British out of Ireland in the 1920's. The film follows the character of a young doctor, played by Cillian Murphy, who's politicized when he sees a friend killed by the Black and Tans for refusing to speak English, and a train driver beaten for refusing to carry British soldiers. Murphy's character learns to fight, takes on the English but then ends up fighting fellow Irishmen when he feels the treaty creating the Irish Free State has betrayed the struggle of the common people. This being a Loach film, there's a definite social agenda, with the landowners, English or Irish, seen as the ultimate villains. But even the landowners have their moments of humanity, and there's no simple solution seen. Both sides commit atrocities, with the final, shocking atrocity being committed by brother against brother. It's a thought-provoking film with great performances all 'round and made me yet again grateful that my great-great-whatever-grandfather decided to get the hell out of Ireland a couple of hundred years ago and leg it to Canada.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 02:31 am (UTC)I'll never forget my first Ken Loach experience at the festival back in 1995 seeing Land and Freedom. One of the most visceral experience I think I have ever had at a movie.
Happy festing!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 03:15 am (UTC)The first of his films I saw was Hidden Agenda, also dealing with the Irish situation. And that also was the first film I saw Frances McDormand in.
The first Loach I saw at the fest was Raining Stones.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 04:41 am (UTC)