The Wind That Shakes The Barley (2006)

Director: Ken Loach

Writer: Paul Laverty

Stars: Cillian Murphy, Pádraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham

Runtime: 127min

PLOT: During the Irish War of Independence, two brothers team up to fight a guerrilla war against British forces.

REVIEW: The movie starts off in a chaos of combat where people of all ages are seen wielding their weapons on the battlefield. 

The cinematography has been executed impeccably by Barry Ackroyd, who captures the past with aesthetics of blues, greens, grays and browns. The movie has been splendidly narrated all throughout making the historical piece seem vividly present. On the whole, the movie has been presented with such tactile immediacy that the sequences among the smoke, grasses, rain and fog can be felt in the bones.

Cillian Murphy depicts the character of Damien O'Donovan, a medical student who along with his brother fights for Irish independence, brilliantly. His brother Teddy, portrayed by Pádraic Delaney does equally well in depicting his urge for the legitimacy of the Sinn Fein party's victory in the election of 1918.

The movie is one of a kind, in a sense that one really does not need to know about the history of troubles in Northern Ireland to fully indulge in this drama by Ken Loach. The movie is one of his bests, earning him the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.

Source: Roger Ebert