Powerful stuff

Rating: 9/10 (17 September 2007)

Last year's Palm D'Or winner. It was kind of a surprise winner, and opinions have been all over it. I haven't seen a lot of the official selections, but of the few I've seen, it's the second best after Almodóvar's Volver (one of my favorites of last year). It's the story of two brothers, Teddy and Damien (Pádraic Delaney and Cillian Murphy), who join the Irish Republican Army after witnessing several atrocities committed by occupying British soldiers. The IRA is basically an insurgent group, which will probably remind most audience members of Iraq. Perhaps this was Loach's intention, and perhaps this is even why the film took home the Palm D'Or. But, allegorically, it doesn't fit the Iraq situation particularly well. Neither the occupying force nor the rebel force of this story matches up very well with present-day Iraq. Plus, the film ends after the occupying force has left. The last third of the film occurs after the Irish parliament has signed a very compromising treaty, wherein they gain a sort of freedom, but are still considered a part of the United Kingdom. If they refused to sign, there would certainly have been war. The people are divided on this, and they begin to fight amongst themselves, including the two brothers. Really, this is a powerful film about the toil, the sacrifices and the stupidity of war. It kind of reminds me of Melleville's Army of Shadows, and even in a way of The Godfather. It contains several gut-wrenching sequences, well directed by Loach (this is my first film by him, for what it's worth). Reviewers who want to comment on the politics of the film are pretty much ignoring that last and most crucial part of this film. The film is solely about the Irish, not the British. In all honesty, though many of the British soldiers we see are brutal louts, I don't see them behaving at all unbelievably for who they are, especially considering the situation (the film does kind of plop us down in the middle of the argument without giving us much context, it is true). Some of them aren't depicted this way, and most are depicted as faceless fodder. Which is exactly how the protagonists see them  or are supposed to see them, anyway  and that's what's most important. There certainly is sympathy for the British victims, as when, after a raid that leaves a couple dozen British dead, a few of the inexperienced IRA men can't stop staring at the corpses they've just created. "Don't look at them. They'd have done the same to you," is the order that's barked at them. I'm glad I skipped it at the theater, though. I was worried about not being able to understand the dialect, and, sure enough, I had to use subtitles. Highly recommended.