Knowing What's Right

Rating: 9/10 (5 May 2007)

The Wind That Shakes the Barley seems like an answer to Liam Neeson's acclaimed biographical film Collins. And curiously enough the answer is given by another Irish actor who states Neeson is a mentor of sorts to him.
Cillian Murphy is the star of this film and he's an Irish Republican Army member, recruited in much the same fashion that Don Murray was in Shake Hands With the Devil, an incident with the British auxiliary Black and Tans radicalizes him and turns him into a patriot. Murphy joins the brigade with good friend Padriac Delaney and the two become comrades in arms.
Comes the signing of the treaty that is so well portrayed in Collins and we see the different attitudes of both men. Delaney is for and Murphy against the treaty. Each brings powerful arguments to bear on his side and each is completely convinced of the rightness of his position. The split between treaty and non-treaty advocates defined Irish politics for the next couple of generations, their political parties were formed on that issue. It's a lot like the split between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton defined our political parties although in Ireland it was a lot more bloody. Not shown in The Wind That Shakes the Barley is the half a dozen years of civil war in the twenties that was more bloody and costly than the original war growing out of the election of Sinn Fein advocates to the British Parliament and those members forming the initial Irish Parliament.
Murphy and Delaney head a very capable cast of Irish players telling a story of a terrible part of their history. I'd recommend seeing this film to anyone who wants to know about Ireland of the last century.