Heartwrenchingly Intense

The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

One of the most powerful films I've seen in a while... and not just because of my Irish roots! After the first scene, you can't even breathe normally until the film is over. The acting is incredible and the story is one I didn't know too much about -- Ireland's fight for independence in the 1920s and the subsequent split between the radical freedom fighters in Ireland and the Irish wanting to compromise and accept a treaty of semi-autonomy from Britain. The brutality and anguish of it all of course makes the British look like a bunch of inhuman pigs, but can anyone really single out Britain? How many countries have been invaded, occupied, and colonized, with their people being subjected to complete injustice?

The film urged me to recall that hate breeds hate, and injustice only provokes revenge. But no matter how many times history repeats itself, it seems that others, particularly the ones with power, ever seem to realize that gravity of such a cycle.