The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Wow.

[dangermousie]

I promise to get to all the comments.

Mr. Mousie and I just returned from the Irish film The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Synopsis and pictures posted in this entry). I could meta about it all day (and plan to, tomorrow), but it's late now so all I will say it is blew me away.

It's the best movie I've seen this year, and probably last year too. It's complicated and complex and deceptively laid back yet incredibly emotionally powerful. I wanted to look away in spots but couldn't.

And all this effect was on someone who knows little if any Irish history.

Go watch.

Now.

And because I cannot completely throw off the shallow? Padraic Delaney who plays Teddy is gorgeous. (So is Cillian Murphy who plays Damien but he is not my type).

Comments

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

That film ripped my heart out and stomped all over it. Not just the deaths but also the whole promise of the war of independence betrayed long before it even got going...

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It's such an amazing amazing movie. Rather hopeless, too, because it's all these people with positive qualities caught in a situation which pits them against each other in a very futile fashion...

I just...

Seriously. I keep thinking about it.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

It is always miserable to think about. The first war with the English the Irish (sort of) win and the outcome is poison for the country...

[kitsune714.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I've heard of this movie -- I like Cillian Murphy a lot, so I think I'll add this to my to-watch list.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It's very very good. Highly recommended.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*clicks on link* SHINY!!!!

*wants*

Cillian Murphy should always look like he did in Batman Begins...there I'm all HOTHOTHOT!!!(followed by, "did I REALLY just think that about Scarecrow?") but otherwise, yeah, nice aye candy, but not my type.
The other guy looks to be very pretty, too, but I'm usually "meh" no matter how good looking they are(not always!) unless i've actually seen them in action.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

CM looks better in this one, because he is intellectual and intense and not psycho :P

Re: seeing them in action. Me too.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I think it was the psycho(when he was the quiet and sinister psycho) that made me like him...my frienmd and i were all "why do we think he's so hot? he's EVIL! and the scarecrow! and should not be hot at all!" but...ooo...intellectual intense...

See, I can look and hundreds of pics of an incredibly hot guy and be all "yeah, nice" then see 2 pics of a guy not half as hot you i've seen in something and squee my head off. It's all about knowing what they can do with the package.

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

Oh That movie! That was indeed one of the best movie of 2006. By far. No wonder it won the Palme at the Festival de Cannes. Padraic Delany is gorgeous and the story is heartbreaking. A war is already horrible but to have to fight a civil war is just beyond it.
I can't re-watch it for now. The movie made too much impression on me. It's hard to watch it just like that.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I kept thinking about it all last night and then I am thinking about it this morning.

It reminded me, a very little, of the situation back in Soviet Union in the early 1920s where once the Revolutionaries defeated the Whites they started turning on each other.

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

(So is Cillian Murphy who plays Damien but he is not my type).

Try another movie and he might change your mind. He's eerie like that.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I've seen him in other movies and this is the closest he came to 'attractive' for me. I think he is an excellent actor and good-looking. It's just very much not my type :)

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

*nods* The rational (aka majority) part of my brain understands and accepts this.

The fangirl part is still screaming: "But OH MY GOD have you seen him in Red Eye? BESTMOVIEEVER."

Murphy in that movie just presses all sorts of buttons I didn't even know existed, so I hope you can forgive me the squealing. *fans self*

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Doesn't he play a psycho in Red Eye? :)

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

Heeeee. Nope -- that's the best part. He's completely sane, and his objective is NOT killing Rachel McAdam's character.

It's an interesting movie... for about an hour. Then Wes Craven (who directed) gets his thing on and the last fifteen minutes are the usual "He's behind you! Behind you!" lovely-woman-trapped-in-a-house-with-a-murderer shtick.

But it's only a 80-minute movie. And it's smart.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Well, Wes Craven is a horror director :P

Maybe I'll check it out at some point...

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

Man, if you think that's what horror is I haven't been subjecting you to enough Asian New Wave. ;)

I really do like the film -- and not just for Cillian Murphy's badassery. The heroine, Lisa Reisner, is one of the most interesting and complex women I've seen in American movies in a while. And it's full of tiny, tiny details that contain very big plot points.

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

But also, I love psychos. Don't you know this? ;) Villains, baby. Oh yeah.

[ysrith.livejournal.com]

I saw this movie in the cinema in Dublin last year when it came out. It was heartbreaking. There was a really negative reaction in the UK press to it as "it would glorify the IRA". Rubbish. How anyone could watch THAT movie and feel it glorified war is beyond me. I cried. All the horror and loss, and the fact that my country lost so many of it's good men in a fulite civil war, that set it back decades. Collins, O'Higgins... and the effect that the bitterness left. My grandfather fought in the War of Independence. I have his medals, and he never forgave what happened afterwords. Not in the sense of blaming one side, but the fact that for the ordinary people the promise of independence never materialized. It took another 75 years or so for that to happen...

And yes Padriac Delaney is a hottie! God I love big Irishmen :)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh wow.

I don't even have any words in response to UK press thinking this glorifies the IRA. This movie struck me so much as against violence and war and the senselessness of loss. Just wow. Talk about watching a different movie.

God I love big Irishmen :)

Maybe I sould check out more Irish movies :)

[grace-om.livejournal.com]

They actually have released this on "In Demand", so we were able to see it last week at home. Excellent and...totally depressing.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is wonderful. But agree, very very sad.