El viento que agita la cebada

A studiously sincere film by veteran helmer Ken Loach and scripter Paul Laverty in which the human drama increasingly gets lost in the political. Though tastily lensed by ace d.p. Barry Ayckoroyd and with a convincing cast led by Cillian Murphy, essentially small-scale pic lacks the involving sweep of Loach's earlier historical-political yarn, "Land and freedom".

Con una sencillez apabullante, con un ritmo que no decae nunca y que hace que más de dos horas de película se antojen breves. Y en una película sin sorpresas (Loach no engaña a nadie: se sabe por quién toma partido), destaca no obstante un final estremecedor, en el que, como en una maldición bíblica, se repite invariablemente la Historia, y ahora no como farsa, sino como terrible, imparable, sobrecogedora tragedia.

Radical though he is, Mr. Loach is hardly a romantic, and the deep humanism that informs his best work — a category in which “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” surely belongs — is insulated from sentimentality by the sense that history is a long, bruising fight, a chronicle of compromise and defeat as well as of tentative triumph and provisional hope. He is also, as anyone steeped in the history of the modern left must be, acquainted with the factionalism and disunity that bedevils those who see themselves on the side of the angels.

Lleva impreso su estilo seco pero también maniqueo hasta casi lo impúdico (...) sólida puesta en escena, con intensidad narrativa y buen gusto general en el aliño (...)