The struggle for revolution is an arduous and often fruitless endeavor built upon ideas and ideals which long for something better. A cynic would say that class differences are inherent and the elites permanent, and therefore a fight for something like socialism, communism, anarchism is futile. I am a cynic and am therefore not inclined to appreciate films with would-be guerrilla fighters hoping to change the world. Ken Loach, however, has made me second-guess those impulses with his powerful and at times deeply moving film about an Englishman who travels to Spain to fight fascism.
Ian Hart plays David, an unemployed communist from Liverpool, who seeing a rather pointless life in Britain decides to pack up and leave his love for Spain to overthrow Franco in 1936. He knows no Spanish, doesn't seem as if he has ever been off the island and is romantic in his ideas of war. He makes it where he needs to be and finds a ragtag group of militia men and women of POUM from all nationalities and creeds hoping to fight the same fight David does.
Their group is entirely socialist, everything is voted on including CO's and this motley crew functions as a family unit. Genuine bonds of friendship and love form amidst the shelling which makes deaths all the more upsetting for the characters as well as the audience. I dislike films who have preachy characters expounding their political beliefs (especially when they are not my own), but these people did not bother me because they believe what they do and don't feel the need to drown the audience with it. In fact, not very much in the way of politics manages to seep its way into the script. These Spaniards, Italians, Germans, Americans, French and Brits are people trying to fight off oppression and nothing more.
Loach does concede that there does need to be room for these sorts of debates, however, and this is done in the form of a town meeting in the pueblo they are stationed at where the militia and the townspeople debate whether or not to collectivize the town's land. This scene is what makes "Land and Freedom" rise far beyond other political war films of its kind. Much of this film is about interpersonal relationships on a one-to-one or small group basis, but here the director has utilized a large number of actors to create real people facing real problems of hunger, poverty and death to magnificent effect. It is a scene of top-notch film-making.
What makes Loach's film so good is his ability to keep the plot centered in reality. It's based off of George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia which is apparently riddled with historical inaccuracies (I myself have never read it, but I know this from a very reputably source) and consequently I am sure that this film adaptation is as well. However, the way in which Loach decided to shoot the battle sequences on location in the desert or in the pueblo, filled with missed shots and accurate deaths--which is much different than other war films which seek simply to thrill--gives a real sense of gravity to the movie and makes those inaccuracies irrelevant.
Further, as I have mentioned, the way these characters relate to one another without the cliches of what a "communist" or "socialist" might be, really gives a sense of general despair for the world they inhabit. In one scene David and his love interest, Blanca, are walking to their post and pass by a family of peasants walking home. Blanca sneers at David for thinking he was poor when living in Liverpool, and explains to him about people living in caves or dirt holes. "That is poor," she says. It's little touches like that help to remind me that perhaps I needn't be so cynical all the time. I do not like these revolutionary far-left politics, but a film like this reminds me that there are real people behind the term "socialist" who lived in abject misery that we, in the Western World of 2012 have never known, and they truly believed the change would come. They fought and died for that change and perhaps those misguided ideas need to be respected too.
What Loach's message is I'm not sure. There is a loving portrait of these people painted, but I think he believes in the futility of it all as well. Watch the American: is he me, or is he Loach?
3.5/4
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