The Birth of a Nation

Rating: 8/10 (30 September 2007)

Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" is a stirring, beautifully realized film that chronicles Ireland's struggle for independence from English rule. The story is set in 1920, four years after the Easter Uprising, in which the citizens of this British-ruled isle unilaterally declared themselves to be a sovereign nation. To make that assertion a reality, bands of armed volunteers, calling themselves the Irish Republican Army, began fighting against the English troops who were suppressing, terrorizing and executing many Irish citizens during the time depicted in the movie. This war lasted from 1919-1921, resulting finally in a partitioned Ireland, consisting of an independent nation called the Irish Republic in the South and an area still voluntarily subject to British rule in the North.
However, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" (which takes its title from an old Irish folk song) is less concerned with the politics of the situation than with the human cost of war. The events of the story are seen mainly through the eyes of a promising young doctor named Damien (played by the fine actor, Cillian Murphy), who is at first reluctant to join the guerillas, believing the British army to be just too well armed and too well manned to be successfully overcome by such a piddling, homegrown force as the IRA. However, after witnessing some particularly brutal treatment of his people by English soldiers, Damien gives up his promising career as a doctor to become a passionate, full-time warrior in the cause of independence and freedom.
Writer Paul Laverty has constructed a simple, straightforward narrative that shows what life is like in a wartime setting. Damien understands that the cause he believes in so passionately is requiring him to commit acts he would never even dream of doing in a time of peace, including executing a boyhood friend of his for betraying him and his fellow fighters to the enemy. A war of freedom requires fortitude, sacrifice and courage from its participants, to be sure, but it also demands a part of their humanity as well. Damien soon learns that one often has to compromise one set of values in order to fulfill another. Laverty makes it plain that no one on either side of such a conflict will ever be able to live entirely at ease with his conscience even if the goal he is fighting for is eventually achieved. This is brought out with particular vividness in the second half of the film, after a treaty has been signed between England and Ireland, granting "independence" to the latter, though with many unsavory strings attached. It is at this point that the rebel forces spilt into two diametrically opposed factions and engage in a civil war, with men who were just recently allies suddenly turning their weapons against one another. Indeed, the pro-treaty fighters begin utilizing the same tactics of torture and terror against the anti-treaty fighters that the British forces had once used against them. This leads to a heartrending and shattering conclusion that exemplifies the horrifying personal cost of just such a conflict.
Through the character of Damien, Laverty and Loach turn what could have been a fascinating, if dry, history lesson into a deeply moving human drama that reminds us of the high price that often must be paid if future generations are to live in freedom. In its own subtle, understated way, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" shows us the birth pangs of a nation.