Ken Loach’s harrowing The Wind That Shakes the Barley chronicles the violent ideological clash between Ireland and Great Britain in 1920 — a conflict that would result in Ireland’s break from the United Kingdom a few years later.
The movie stars Cillian Murphy as a loyal Republican whose village is taken under siege by British soldiers. He and his brother Teddy (Padraic Delaney) join the Irish Republican Army to stamp out the British. Circumstances eventually cause the brothers to part ways, leading to a painful situation for them both.
The story is told in two acts: the violence and the political aftermath. The former contains the most tension, including a gruesome torture scene that seems reminiscent of Pan’s Labyrinth. The latter gives a better idea of the hostility between the Republicans, who fiercely wanted independence from the imperial British Empire, and the loyalists, who preferred peaceful unity. The Wind That Shakes the Barley works as a drama as well as a bit of a history lesson. — Dan Seliber