Stars: Ian Hart, Claire Hackett, Anne Reid, Anne Reid, Anthony Burrows

Director: Stephen Frears

Summary: A story told through the eyes of a child called Liam. He is the youngest in a catholic family living in poverty stricken Liverpool during the depression.

Originally produced for the B.B.C., director Stephen Frears masterfully crafts this poignant portrait of one family's attempt to stay afloat in impoverished 1930s England. The political, religious, and economic strife of pre-Word War II Liverpool is seen through the eyes of Liam (Anthony Burrows), a seven-year-old living with Dad (Ian Hart) and Mam (Claire Hackett), and preparing himself for his First Communion. Dad is a deeply proud working class Catholic who labors tirelessly to feed his family, until he loses his job at the local shipyard. Desperate for money, Liam's teenage sister Teresa (Megan Burns) is forced to take a job as a maid for the upper class Jewish owners of the shipyard while Mam relies on her religious beliefs for strength and comfort. As Liam questions his own religious identity and struggles with the concepts of sin and salvation, he watches his father slip into a stagnant and hateful rage fueled by his family's poverty and loss of self-respect. This rage leads Dad to join a group of Fascists who blindly blame the local Jews for their own starvation, poverty, and powerlessness, as the threat of war looms on the horizon. Liam, portrayed with remarkable grace and ability by young Burrows, is a stuttering, charming, and naive antihero who embodies the profound innocence of children as they fight to comprehend the sometimes unfathomable actions of the adult world. This quiet ensemble piece highlights the actors, who deftly work together in a tale of simple realism which finds beauty in the daily routines and rituals of a family struggling to survive a daunting change.

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Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, this gripping drama by Ken Loach (Raining Stones) is set during the early days of the Irish Republican Army, when British occupation of the Irish radicalised many a citizen and caused some to take up arms. Cillian Murphy plays Damien, a medical student on his way to London when he witnesses a couple of atrocities committed by British troops. Instead of becoming a doctor, he turns into a leading and respected figure in an IRA division led by his brother, Teddy (Padraic Delaney).

The film provides some fascinating historical insight into the nascent resistance movement as it was in 1920, and Loach brilliantly conveys the profound emotional transition young men had to make to become saboteurs and killers. Loach's realistic style is absolutely mesmerizing, with many scenes built around the dynamics of large groups: contentious meetings, torture sessions, battles, celebrations, and the like. One has the sense of history as a pool of energy, and one also develops a kind of Renoir-esque appreciation for the fact that different people on opposing sides of a life-or-death issue have their reasons for believing what they believe. As the story moves along, subtle shifts in the perspectives of men and women who had once agreed to be absolute in their fight for freedom results in a tragic yet understandable schism among Irish patriots. The final half-hour of The Wind That Shakes the Barleysays a lot about how the Irish, including people who had known one another all their lives, turned their wrath on one another for so many decades. This is an outstanding film, featuring the best performance yet by Murphy (Red Eye). --Tom Keogh

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 0
Special Features:	Theatrical Trailer, Production Notes, Filmographies
Year:	2000
Release Date:	December 26, 2001
Runtime:	91 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	A R T 200 D V D
Keywords:	General, Wide, Screen, Liam, Drama
Genre:	Drama