June 30

I haven’t spent a ton of time watching Irish films. Actually, I haven’t spent a ton of time watching movies in general, much less Irish ones. But I was particularly impressed with one we watched in class this week. Instead of jotting down notes about lighting, costumes, or scene cuts, I found myself scribbling quotes, lines of poetry, and themes that paralleled ideas I’ve come across on the trip so far. If for no other reason, I thought these little inspirations were a pretty good indication of a well-made movie. I can gauge how much a like something by how motivated I am to remember it later.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley is historical fiction, chronicling the struggle between the Irish Republican Army and the insurgency of Black and Tans, British soldiers, in Ireland in the early 1920s. It shows how the confusing and often complicated conflict affected lives on a local level. Moments were incredibly heartbreaking.

A huge theme was the evolution of two main characters, brothers, who start out fighting for the radical IRA trying to win Irish independence from Britain and end up on different sides of the argument. Betrayed and near desperation, one brother reminds the other that he didn’t even want to get involved in the conflict in the first place, but now that he has, he can’t get out even if he wanted to.

It seemed to me that many of the young men found themselves fighting for things they believed in (to varying degrees) but nonetheless found themselves making choices they never wanted to make. I started asking myself how these young men ended up there. Why they kept acting like they didn’t have a choice when, clearly, they did.

The end of the movie reads a letter the main character, Damien, pens to his spouse and quotes, “Strange creatures we are, even to ourselves.” Maybe why we make choices isn’t always clear to us, or even a conscious decision at all. In Clockwork Orange, I will always remember the priest being the only one to express concern over the inhumanity of taking away human will. In fact, according to that character, free will, or choice, is the only thing that keeps our humanity afloat.

It’s a common literary theme, I’m aware. A friend of mine reminded me that even in To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout Finch admits she didn’t like reading until it was taken away from her. But it’s a powerful theme, and one that I keep running into. In one of the closing scenes of The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Damien reflects on his involvement with the IRA and his choices regarding his family and fellow Irishmen. “Its easy to know what you’re against,” he writes. “Quite an honor to know what you’re for.” And I think he has a point. Having a choice may be the most important aspect of our humanity, but maybe it takes losing it, or the threat of losing that freedom, to know exactly what we would do with it. (507 words)