Themes
According to director Ken Loach, the film attempts to explore the extent that the Irish revolution was a social revolution as opposed to a nationalist revolution. Mr. Loach commented on this theme in an interview with Toronto’s Eye Weekly (March 15, 2007):
"Every time a colony wants independence, the questions on the agenda are: a) how do you get the imperialists out, and b) what kind of society do you build? There are usually the bourgeois nationalists who say, 'Let's just change the flag and keep everything as it was.' Then there are the revolutionaries who say, 'Let's change the property laws.' It's always a critical moment."
According to Rebecca O'Brien, producer of the film and a longtime Loach collaborator,
"It's about the civil war in microcosm... It's not a story like Michael Collins. It's not seeking that sort of biographical accuracy, but rather will express the themes of the period. This is the core of the later Troubles, which is why it's so fascinating to make."
In an internet review written for About.com, Marcy Dermansky praised the film, saying,
"Loach explores big questions. How does killing a man in cold blood change a person? (Answer: not for the better.) Do the means justify the ends, even when it means killing your friends and family in the name of liberation? (Answer: there is no easy answer.) War is hell, and in no way does The Wind That Shakes the Barley glorify it."
Read more about this topic: The Wind That Shakes The Barley (film)
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)