Ken Loach's 'Land and Freedom' borrows heavily from Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' in telling us the story of the Spannish civil war. It's nicely executed, although, telling the story from a foreign perspective, it's relatively brief in its depiction of how the country fell into war. But it doesn't shy from exploring the "revolution or order" debates that ultimately split the Republican side (and which ended with the Stalinists settling the issue in blood on the side of order). There's less romanticism here than in some Loach movies and the film is better for it, but the structure is perhaps too simple, the hero's varying feelings for a woman serving as a stand in for his whole emotional involvement in what's happening around him. It's a good film, but it's less interesting than reading Orwell, who had the fortune (if that is the word) to be able to tell history without hindsight, and from experience first hand.

Land and Freedom is a British drama, directed by the English left-wing director Ken Loach, with a script written by playwright Jim Allen. His and Ken Loach's Marxist, Trotskyist, and anti-Stalinist orientations are evidently present in the film, although it is arguably the theme of Stalinist repression of anti-franquist communist and anarchist militias in Spain during the Civil War, to be mainly portrayed. In the end, given the several disputes and scuffles between the various anti-Franco factions, we wonder, with the director: What is the point to all this? The story develops through flashbacks, and it recounts of a David Carr, a British unemployed member of the Communist Party from Liverpool, who decides to go and fight the cause of the anti-franquist movement in the Spanish Civil War. The narration takes place through some letters Carr wrote, newspaper clippings, and other documents he collected, found and read by his granddaughter, right after his death. The film rides the wave of the leftoid socio-political movement of the 90's, as already mentioned in this blog, with regards to La Haine and, similarly to the French film, this socio-political situation contributes greatly to its success, especially amongst certain circles.Other themes present in the film are the anti-Clericalism, revealed with the summary execution of the priest culpable of exposing the militians to the Franquist; rudimentary feminism, given the fact that in the POUM, men and women fight together; and finally, the socialist matrix also appears, especially in the village assembly scene, where the peasants vote for the collectivization of the land. This scene is arguably one of the best of the entire movie; Loach's pursue of realism reaches its apex here. The camera loses its perspective, and plunges the viewer right into the live situation, and the dialogues are apt and poignant, also considering that most of the actors participating to this scene were non-professionals.

Anarchists have remained almost invisible in mass media films. Worse, when they have appeared, it is generally some bourgeois stereotype of anarchists as violent or some socialist stereotype of anarchists as infantile. Here they are shown more accurately as organized and committed to the nitty-gritty basics of the revolution of everyday life.British director Ken Loach made a film that finally attempts an anarchist's view of anarchists in Spain during the civil war against the fascists. The victors write history, so as losers of that war, their history has for too long remained untold. But this 1995 film, "Land & Freedom" shows what they were fighting for and what they were fighting against. One of the best aspects here is that the film also shows how the communists aggressively destroyed the anarchists more than their supposed common enemy. This I take as a lesson for today's left:The melancholy hopelessness of our own 21st century is a consequence of that tragic defeat by the fascists -- largely because the Left fragmented and was brutally dominated by Leninist dictators. Historical progress is now merely spinning its wheels in futility, recycling every old thing again as a farce. The only solution is land and freedom.P.S. Another sympathetic film based on these events is "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1943) based on the Hemingway novel, starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. This one is less politically aware however, so it focuses more on the romance. See info at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035896/combined

It is, perhaps, surprising that more films about the Spanish Civil War haven't been made. The Spanish landscape, the sheer ruthlessness of any civil war, and the perceived Spanish emotions all combine to make what would appear to be an attractive proposition for a film-maker. The names of Picasso and Lorca will forever have an association with the war, yet where are the artists representing cinema? All the more surprising then that it should have been British director Ken Loach who took up the cudgels. Loach is probably best known for his gritty portrayals of the British working class (and under-class), something that has, perhaps, made him more approachable outside his own country. In tackling the Spanish Civil War any writer is faced with the overwhelming complexities that underlie the events. The regionalism (think only of the Catalan and Basque regions, let alone Galicia and Andalusia), the monarchy, the Catholic Church, landowners, trade unions, anarchists plus the leaderships of the Nationalist and Republican movements all combined to create a very tangled web. Add to that outside involvement, principally from Mussolini and Stalin, the vacillation of Britain and France and, of course, the omnipresence of Hitler, and anyone might wonder where to start.Loach and Allen take their approach through the eyes of an unemployed Liverpudlian, David Carr (admirably played by Ian Hart) who, as a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, answers the call to fight for the Republic. We follow his exploits through a number of episodes, involving battles, falling in love, injury and, ultimately, a degree of disillusion as the reality of Stalin's views eventually come to dominate, and eventually destroy, his cause. The film is supremely well-made, highlighting the horrors, the camaraderie, and the political divisions. In particular, the debate amongst the militia about collectivisation after they have taken a small town takes no sides, but simply allows a number of valid arguments to be exposed within the context of the shifting sands of the war.There is still ample material for the industry to go on to make more films on this important period in history. But Loach has set the benchmark.