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Tragic Ireland
Set in Ireland in the early 1920's, this is the story of two brothers fighting for the cause of Irish independence. The IRA was a ragtag band of farm boys and local townsmen who, enraged by the appearance of the British Black and Tans in their country, decide that independence for Ireland is going to be a fight to the death. The British used cruel paramilitary tactics to try to suppress the rebellion, which did more to undermine their moral authority than anything else. The film depicts the futility of military tactics to subdue a people defending their own land. A political solution, though not a cure all, as we know from history, was the only answer. <
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>Teddy O'Donnell unsuccessfully tries to draw his doctor brother Damien into the struggle. But Damien abandons his intention to take a job at a prestigious London hospital as he witnesses an act of violence on the platform of the train he's about to depart on. The brothers lead a band of guerillas harassing the British at every turn; exhausted by the fight, a Truce is finally declared by the British. But there's no redeeming end to this story for many years, as we all know. The Truce was the beginning of a fierce civil war, that has tragic consequences for the brothers and has had terrible consequences for Ireland for decades. <
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>Shot on location, primarily in County Cork, the film doesn't romanticize the countryside or the people. The land is rainy and foggy and cloudy; the farms are poor. The interiors are cramped, smoky and dark. The film has a gritty, realistic quality, to match the grim story. The actors are all Irish, the dialogue often heavily accented and mumbled, occasionally mixed with Gaelic. This is a painful film to watch, but well-deserving of the awards it's received. The movie has excited comment in Britain for good reason--the British come off looking very bad. Nothing is spared in depicting British torture and murder; I covered my eyes a few times. There's no doubt that this is the Irish side of the story, but keeping that in mind, it's a great film and well worth your time. <
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Ken Loach's masterpiece!!
This brutal dramatis personae turns around the oppressive environment that hovered Ireland in the twenties decade, when the far cries and mournful sorrows of a bloody WW1 still remained in the soul and memories of the rest of Europe. <
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>That unstoppable determination in pursuit of independence and freedom, generated bloody confrontations inside the civil society against occupation forces. <
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>But the truce has come to calm the spirits, that configures two opposite points of view, those who agree with the truce and they who definitively assume this will not solve but on the contrary will lengthen the conflict. <
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>When a brother - seduced by the mermaid's songs of the great and pretended illusion - (the inseparable partnership of politics), forgets and loses above all, his human condition, agrees with a civilized dialogue, against the rage, the crude vision of the horrid reality not masked by treats or pacts, we have two opposed visions of the world; the natural law and the human law, hard to conciliate themselves throughout the history of the humanity. <
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>Ken Loach focuses with admirable crudeness the most little insights into this fratricide fight among citizens born under a same flag, land and tradition; he previously had given us a powerful film about the bloody Spanish Civil War; so, in this sense, that experience eased and even nourished the approach about that sensitive, painful and even not solved issue that many lives has generated. <
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>I would not hesitate to include this bold, brave and incisive film among the five gems of 2006, there' s not a single hole, script, performances, locations, fluid camerawork and wonderful edition process. <
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>Superb performance of Cillian Murphy! <
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