Two films to watch for at Bath Film Club this January. Both, it turns out, about men who choose ideology over the people they love.
The Wind that Shakes the Barley
It’s our old Bathonian Ken Loach! Palme d’Or 2006 and you can see why. Filmed in County Cork, written by Paul Laverty. It seems to get something right about how power works – how the fear and paranoia of not having power often causes the brutality of power. Do the cruel and depraved lead, because these are the only people willing to inflict the violence that captures power?
I like Loach’s use of sometimes amateurs to build the texture of a scene. Realistic, but sometimes wooden? Purposefully? Similar to what Shane Meadows does in Gallows Pole.
I’m with Damien in the film. I want to fight but also see the futility. Do I seem a coward to the hot-headed? It’s a youth thing as well. Young folks always want to do something, they haven’t lived through things, they haven’t got that tiredness in the bones, no dependents or connections. Things are more black and white because they haven’t lived to back-fill the context.
I’d recently read about the origin of the word “boycott“, this came from Ireland and a non-violent response to British rule, refusing service. Loach demonstrates how this often wasn’t “non-violent” for the boycotters.
Is there any cleverness with the depiction of violence? Do we get carried away like the IRA ended up in time? Revolution is easy with a clear external oppressor. Violence begets violence. The scene when Damien has to kill the landowner and Chris is genuinely affecting.
The problem with trying to bring in any regime of fairness is you end up pissing off those with means. Liam Cunningham is always good – I like the complexities of funding versus justice. And I like how the film portrays the compromises of “success” and peace. It’s never easy.
You forget that at this time the Russian revolution was just a few years old. News was slow and imperfect. Nationalism, class, and power. Thinking in symbols. Symbols that have real examples but also real counterexamples. And it amuses me that everyone’s in suits for sport and manoeuvres.
Ken’s films are sometimes too idealistic – good put-upons versus oppressors? But I do like the symmetry of this one. The raiding of the houses, of the guns. It’s a bit depressing though. Can things ever change? Compromises, implosions, hatred turned. Nothing is good enough.
The end scene between the brothers is brilliant. How the positions switch. How the intellectual becomes radicalised by ideas, how the soldier becomes tired of death and just wants compromise, even if imperfect. Sinead to Teddy mirroring Chris’s mum to Damien. Impossible choices. Orders from afar. Ideas bigger than people’s lives. Is it worth it?
Who do you feel more sympathy for – Damien or Teddy? Me, Teddy. I don’t like what Damien becomes at the end. He is a stubborn wounded idiot, not a martyr.
I was reading Against the Day by Pynchon at the time and this line came to mind while watching this film:
Fate does not speak. She carries a Mauser and from time to time indicates our proper path.
Captain Fantastic
Loved the start when they all came out of the forest in camouflage. Love the bone temple of the young girl. The hugging of the deer as it dies. Brutal – is that the point?
How much of this is wish fulfilment of a man of a certain age? They are all reading my library! Brothers Karamazov, Brian Greene, Guns, Germs & Steel. The music scene where they are all joining in around the camp fire is brilliant – he lets the children lead. Into the Wild vibes on the truck.
You’re sucked in thinking “this is great” but there’s the nagging question of whether the emotional well-being is being ignored in favour of pure reason. The mother is dead – “she finally did it” is the killer line. No emotional aid. Brutal honesty, is it good or bad as a parent? On the rock climbing, the younger kid calmly talking about blunt force trauma from the fall below. Is this healthy or horrifying?
When they all pretend to be homeschooled Christians to get rid of the cop, you can’t help but laugh. “No Esperanto.” Noam Chomsky Day is a bit cringe. Is it meant to be? Over the top into absurdity. It feels like it.
I like how the film’s characters discuss what we’re thinking – “you are going to get them killed.” It says the quiet parts out loud. The “road trip” structure gives the film its spine. Like Little Miss Sunshine. And the child actors are brilliant.
The writer and director Matt Ross – also known as Gavin Belson in Silicon Valley and Alby Grant in Big Love -did grow up in an alternative lifestyle similar to the one in the film. He banned electronic devices from set. You can feel that. Viggo Mortensen got an Oscar nomination for this, and fair enough.
“Unless it comes out of a fucking book, I don’t know anything about anything.” That scene is a core pivot at the end, but maybe the final ending of the film doesn’t quite carry this?
What do we think of Ben – the character, not me? Is he redeemed? A monster? The juxtaposition of the kids playing violent computer games at their cousins’ house with the hunting at the start tells you something. Their funeral outfits are brilliant. Sweet Child O’ Mine with the whole family singing at the burning. The cringe when he proposes marriage.
The question then becomes: how much of it is fantasy? How realistic a life is it? And isn’t the granddad going to come after the kids?
Both films leave you with the same uncomfortable feeling. Conviction is attractive until you see what it costs. Damien and Ben are different men in different worlds but the same man in a way – so certain they’re right that they nearly destroy the people closest to them. Maybe the truly brave thing isn’t holding your ground. Maybe it’s admitting your ground has shifted.
[Assembled with a bit of help from Claude, working from my scribbled notes at the screenings. I do have a day job. If it reads a bit too smooth in places, blame the robot — the messy opinions are all mine.]
Robotic Ape 