I studied anatomy for five years, Dan. And now I’m going to shoot this man in the head.
-Damien O’Donovan
Many of the movies I watch, I pick because I like a particular actor. I watched Uncle Frank because I like Paul Bettany. I watched The Pope’s Exorcist because I like Russel Crowe. (A Beautiful Mind and Master and Commander are both well worth anyone’s time). So since I’m headed to Ireland in a few weeks, and I like Cillian Murphy, I decided to watch The Wind that Shakes the Barley, a 2006 movie about the Irish War of Independence as it developed into the Irish Civil War.
Murphy was rather unknown at the time - the list I found the movie from billed it as his “breakout” role - which is fitting for his character. He plays Damien O’Donovan, a doctor who gives up, or at least postpones indefinitely, a career in medicine in the service of the fledgling Irish Republic. Neither he nor his sacrifice are presented as extraordinary: while perhaps a bit better educated than his peers, he’s thoroughly rooted in his community. The film opens with him playing hurling with, or against, his friends (an illegal assembly under the Defense of the Realm Act), and walking up their homes to bid farewell to their mothers and families before he leaves for England.
The film, named after a Robert Dwyer Joyce poem, is morally driven by the clear black and white morality of a brutal and patronizing occupying force. This is helpful motivation, though I can’t really assess it on the merits of historical accuracy. The bad guys aren’t really the point. They function as a vast, mostly faceless leviathan that dares the humble O’Donovan and his fellow Irishmen to resist.
Damien cuts off his future in England after witnessing some barbarous harassment of his fellow citizens, resulting in a friend’s death. The film doesn’t linger on this decision; the call to duty is not framed as an act of momentous heroism, but rather as a mundane reaction to some disparaging comments from his friends.
“You’re a coward, Damien.”
“And you’re a hero, is it Ned? You’re going to take on the British Army with your hurley, is that it?”
It feels strange to me that anyone would review a movie, or a book or restaurant, negatively. Why waste the time, unless you have some ulterior frame for the work, like if you wanted to (perhaps rightly!) shred a Senator’s book for political/culture war reasons, or you’re making a broader critical claim by defenestrating something that’s a widely liked product of mass culture. So I’m recommending this movie. It’s worth watching for the narrative, the acting, the moral weight, and the history. If you liked the mood and setting of the Banshees of Inisherin, this movie is a more conventional narrative experience of the era.
The Wind that Shakes the Barley - Sean Keating, 1941
The film raises questions of political economy, of trust and brotherhood, of sacrifice and of the costs of coexistence. It bothers with the details of political turmoil, in the tension between the demands of war and the administration of peace. Damien and his compatriots endure astonishing personal costs in the name of Ireland and their political aims. While they couldn’t know exactly where their defection would lead them, they embrace the power and necessity of violence without affectation, as if waging war were an ordinary, even obvious, piece of work. It’s a film that embraces wild swings between the evident futility, even hopelessness, of the struggle, and the promise and power of some unlikely heroes. What sticks with me most now, however, is this movie’s portrayal of duty.
This natural engagement with duty is powerful today in a society which seems disconnected with responsibility outside of ourselves or our immediate circumstances. Duty feels far away. It is not explicitly discussed. We rightly honor leaders and everyday people who embrace it, but this often has a tenor of surprised relief rather than of expected regularity. It’s inspiring to see people give up so much while facing such long odds.
And while we have the benefit of history to vindicate their struggle, this obviously wasn’t available to the characters in the film. Their victory and a healthy Irish Republic was not a sure thing, and it would take some half a century yet for it to be realized. They suffer dearly for what at times feels like hope alone. I think that kind of sacrifice is worth reminding ourselves of.
I bore her to the wildwood screen,
And many a summer blossom
I placed with branches thick and green
Above her gore-stain'd bosom:-
I wept and kissed her pale, pale cheek,
Then rushed o'er vale and far lea,
My vengeance on the foe to wreak,
While soft winds shook the barley!