BY MOLLY TEMPLETON
Winds of Change
Damien (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Pádraic Delaney) in The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Hardly a moment to mourn
THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE
BARLEY: Directed by Ken Loach. Screenplay by
Paul Laverty. Cinematography, Barry Ackroyd.
Music, George Fenton. Starring Cillian Murphy,
Pádraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham and Orla
Fitzgerald. IFC First Take, 2007. Not rated. 124 min-
utes. 44411
T
he Wind that Shakes the Barley,
the latest film from acclaimed and
highly political director Ken
Loach, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes
Film Festival last year. A well-crafted film
that’s anchored by a nicely understated per-
formance from the Cillian Murphy (you’ve
seen his unearthly cheekbones in Batman
Begins and 28 Days Later), Barley is visu-
ally rich within its dark, damp palette of
greens, browns and grays. It’s a look at a
period that may have more than a few
viewers reaching for their history books (or
at least clicking over to Wikipedia): the
Irish War of Independence.
Yet Barley is, despite all
this, a peculiarly distant film
that wears purpose on its
sleeve in a slightly offputting
manner, directing the view-
er’s attention toward the film-
maker’s intent and away from
the film’s slight characters
and its occasionally jumpy
storytelling. Like Clint
Eastwood’s Letters From Iwo
Jima, it gives little sense of
the broader scope of the con-
flict, focusing solely on a
small group of men who are
shocked into joining the fight
against British rule after a
brutal murder. In one sense,
this works well, emphasizing the film’s
verité aspects. But while Barley limits its
perspective to these dozen or so fighters, it
only fleshes out two of them: brothers
Damien and Teddy O’Donovan (Murphy
and Pádraic Delaney).
Down to the Earth
NORTHWEST PASSAGE: The Birth of Portland’s D.I.Y Culture: Directed by Mike Lastra. Featuring Poison Idea, Smegma, Wipers,
Dead Kennedys and more. Indepently released, 2006. Not rated. 88 minutes. 44111
M
ike Lastra’s Northwest Passage feels a bit like an accidental film. Lastra is dubbed a “video pioneer” on the DVD case,
and this shows in the arty effects that appear in his footage from live shows in the late 1970s through early 1980s. But
though Passage is filled out with interviews and montages, in large part it’s a concert film. Lastra includes entire songs
performed live by a host of bands that combined to form a musical movement in Portland. The problem with this is simple: If you
weren’t there — weren’t one of those people picking up an instrument because it didn’t seem that hard — you likely won’t find
much to appreciate in Lastra’s nostalgic, music-heavy film.
Passage is a well-meant piece, and the musicians interviewed (including Jello Biafra, Tom Roberts of Poison Idea and, very
briefly, Kurt Cobain) seem happy to talk about the period. News clips add some humor as anchors in deliciously bad glasses talk
about the “punkers” and interview fans. But late in the film, one of Lastra’s interviewees points out a truth of the era that explains
why Passage doesn’t feel like a vital piece of music history: The punk movement was happening everywhere, and on a large scale
it was hugely important. But a great number of the individual bands were forgettable. (When the Dead Kennedys take the stage
at the Earth Tavern, the setting for much of the live footage, you can see in an instant why they weren’t forgettable.) As it does-
n’t satisfyingly connect Portland to the larger punk movement, or locate punk on a larger musical landscape, Northwest Passage
is more memento than portrait. (Opening Friday at the Bijou.) — Molly Templeton
Gradually, it becomes clear that Loach
and screenwriter Paul Laverty are leaving
the other men blank as a means of illus-
trating the experience of soldiers in a war,
and the way death becomes something to
accept swiftly, with hardly a moment to
mourn. This, along with the eventual
fighting among the Irish, who disagree
forcefully about a treaty signed with the
Brits, underscores Loach’s timeliness: He
clearly made this film at this moment for
a reason. As we almost never see the big-
ger picture, the war depicted in Barley
feels both small and universal, intimate
and detached. Maybe, as with the form-
less characters, this is Loach’s intent — to
remind us that a war, no matter how far
away it is in time or space, is still right in
front of us, its violence breeding retribu-
tion. But without a sense of connection to
the characters, or to a truly compelling
narrative arc, The Wind That Shakes the
Barley remains solid and remote, a slice
of history that’s forgotten some piece of
its heart.
ew
The Wind That Shakes the Barley opens Friday, June 8,
at the Bijou.
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