The Wind That Shakes The Barley

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Gearoid

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I got dragged to see this film the other night. When it came out, I said I never would. While the film will be enjoyed my many I wonder how much anti-English feeling it will cause to the younger people that go to see it?
 
It is about the Irish Civil War and the events leading up to the Irish Free State being established in 1922 including the notorious acts of the Black and Tans .

Was it any good Gearoid ?
 
My (maternal) grandfather's family moved away from Ireland after the Black & Tans burned their house down :(
 
While the film will be enjoyed my many I wonder how much anti-English feeling it will cause to the younger people that go to see it?
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Does it specifically pander to those stupid enough to believe they're justified in being anti-English (or anti-British) because of the events depicted?
 
Just spending half an hour doing my fortnightly shop at Tesco is enough to bring my anti-English feelings to the boil.
 
Is the film any good?

Your asking the wrong person. I dont mind seeing it but I knew what to expect. Two hours of dramatising the fight for an independant Ireland. The final scene with the leading role was a paticular bucket reaching moment. History shuld be read in a book not interputed in films like these. Go see it in the cinema in Ireland and here what the folk are saying on the way out.
 
Not withstanding Krizon's late night anachronistic misguided uninformed misrepresentation of my whole nation, I still intend to go and see it this weekend.

I will offer the definitive opinion here later.
 
I haven't seen the movie but I read an interview in paper the other day with director.He said you cant have a movie about Irish independence without showing
the cruelty of the British state.But that its anti British state not anti British people.

I don't think you need a film to encourage anti English attitude,just listen to some stable lads in Kildare and you'd be shocked.The grief I got when I moved to England.
 
Technically, Krizon's early morning blah, blah, blah, AC. Still favouring the Joycean approach to punctuation, I see?
 
I am afraid the end left me distinctly dry eyed . It was generally very well acted but the politics of the film were very simplistically presented . The film would have you believe that the anti-treaty forces were all socialists and this was the major motivation for the Civil War . A highly questionable approach .
 
The two major reasons for Civil War were the oath of allegiance and partition surely.

I don't think that de Valera for example wanted a socialist republic ! whatever the views of some of the Irregulars.

The film teetered at times on agitprop, more in the Civil War than War of Independence part ironically , for example the attack by the Free State armies on the Four Courts was presented wholly out of context ,and as a whole the film was a bit of a disappointment.
 
Ardross is largely correct. De Valera was a right wing demagogue, who I imagine would have loved to model Ireland on Franco's Spain. However, in 1921/1922 he was slippery enough not to alienate a populist idea such as socialism. Remember that one of the executees in 1916 was James Connolly - leader of Irish radical trade unionism.

De Valera went into Parliament, despite the oath in 1927 and became Taoiseach in 1932. By 1937 he co-wrote the new constitution with the fascist Archbishop of Dublin and was by then, imprisoning communists. By the 1940's he was hanging colleagues who had fought with him in the Civil War for Republican activities.

Protocol obliged him to sign books of condolences for deceased heads of State, and he performed this act at the German Embassy in April 1945.
 
It is one of those fascinating " what if " questions - had de Valera been executed after the Easter Rising with the other leaders .
 
Erm no she wouldn't as I am not related to her by blood - thus she if a he would not have married my uncle .
 
Saw it tonight. Thought (like Ardross) that the socialist thing was a total red herring, and also felt it was far too sympathetic to the anti-treaty side. Hearing one of the women at a meeting talk about Michael Collins being "seduced" in Britain without any attempt to place that accusation in a historical context seriously pissed me off, as did Cillian Murphy's character apparantly losing the ability of rational and intelligent thought halfway through the film.
 
Omigod!!! How on earth can anything Cillian Murphy does ever piss anyone off??? He's just the best thing on two legs ever - he's actually beautiful, which very few men are!!! Might have to go and watch this now......
 
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