Movie Review: The Wind That Shakes the Barley
“The Wind That Shakes the Barley” derives its title from an Irish ballad, written by Robert Dwyer Joyce. It speaks of the terrible sorrows of conflict and war, of having to deal with the lost of your loved ones. The”barley” in the song title refers to the barley oats that the rebel fighters carried in their pockets as provision in the 1798 Irish rebellion, and the phenomena that barley often grows out of the thousands of unmarked graves of fallen Irish rebels.
Set during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, this Palme d’Or-winning film tells the story of two brothers, Damien (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Padraic Delaney), who joins the IRA as guerrilla fighters with the desire of driving out the British occupation. As the fighting wears on, and with both sides inflicting heavy losses on one another, a truce is declared by the British Empire, fearing the escalating costs of the conflict…
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