Land and Freedom (1995)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Beautiful, moving film.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The United States does a lot of good in the world. No one can deny that fact. But, anyone who believes in the canard that America is a believer in democracy only has to look at our government's support of the fascists in Miami, in Chile and in Franco's revolt in Spain.For a good history of the military overthrow of the democratically elected government in Spain in 1936, the BBC put together a six-hour miniseries that shows what happened. For the American side, see the documentary "The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War." Of course, the NAZI's and Italian Fascists used the war as training for their invasion of Europe as they supported Franco's revolt.This is a romantic story of David (Ian Hart) who joins the fight on the side of freedom against the forces of Franco and the Catholic priests, who used women as shields and abused them in their service of the rich landowners. He stays until the end even though he is disillusioned after the involvement of Stalin, which results in the breakup of the Republicans and, of course, the eventual loss of the war.Hart (Breakfast on Pluto, A Cock and Bull Story) was superb in his portrayal of the disillusioned freedom fighter and Rosana Pastor showed great promise as Blanca.Director Ken Loach (McLibel, 11'09''01 - September 11 ) was honored at Cannes for this film.

Fascism versus Communism? Gosh, what a choice. How 'bout neither?A combination English/foreign film, with subtitles mixed in liberally, this is the story of the common peoples' fight against Franco's fascist regime in Spain. The "people" consider themselves Communists and that ideology is portrayed positively, of course, an antidote of sorts against Fascism. Frankly, neither system has shown itself to be a good one for the "common man," so promoting Communism, as it's done here, was not attractive to me.What was attractive was to see this on a widescreen VHS because it's nicely filmed. However, the story begins to lag halfway trough as long ideological arguments are espoused over and over. That, and a boring romance, led this to make me lose interest before it was over.

Land and Freedom is one of the few non-Spanish feature films about the Spanish Civil War. This is a shame, but at least this one film almost makes up for the paucity of cinematic treatments of this event and period.The story bears some superficial resemblance to George Orwell's experiences, as detailed in Homage to Catalonia -- a British leftist joins the POUM militia and gets mixed up in the events of May, 1937 and the suppression of the party. But Loach fleshes the story out with some wonderful characters and a rare, truly moving wartime love story.The film is shot in a cinema-verite style that really emphasizes the grit, the horror and heroism of the characters' resistance to fascism. The leads, Ian Hart and Rosana Pastor give wonderful performances. Pastor's portrayal of a woman motivated by idealism, economic need and more than a bit of world-weariness, is incandescent. Yes, she often spout slogans, but that's how people often speak in those situations.Marc Martinez and Eoin McCarthy are excellent as the militia section commander and the experienced Irish volunteer, respectively.My one real quibble is that, perhaps by necessity, Loach compressed the really complex issues surrounding the May Days and the suppression of the POUM. The Communist Party were the bad guys, but things were much more complicated than that at the national level in Spain. Nationally, with the organization of the International Brigades and Soviet support for the republic, they were the good guys.From David Carr's and Blanca's perspective, however, the national level was not important, so there really is a great deal of honesty in this film.

This is an interesting little film starring Ian Hart as an Englishman, David Carr, from Liverpool who goes to Spain to fight on the socialist/communist side during the Spanish Civil War.You know it's a Ken Loach film right from the start when you see the typical bleak urban landscapes of modern Britain – council tower blocks, ugly roads and traffic – as David Carr dies in the ambulance on the way to the hospital leaving behind a vast collection of letters, photographs, newspaper cuttings and mementoes from his time in the conflict fifty years before.Every seemingly old, boring person may have led a fascinating and remarkable life; his grand-daughter trawls through this personal time-capsule and the generation gap is no more.The depiction of the civil war itself is beautifully and painstakingly recreated with authentic uniforms (or lack of), rustic farmhouses serving as HQs and plenty of bandit/partisan-style shoot-outs, presumably the essential nature of the conflict in its early stages (before the International Brigades took over). In some ways it is like a prelude to the 1960s, with free love, communal living and an easy-going lifestyle prevailing.Rosana Pastor is beautiful as Blanca, a young, idealistic yet romantic firebrand serving as the love interest for David Carr. It's not really necessary for the plot and a bit un-Ken Loach. Nevertheless, she is worth it! There are also some fine scenes of grass-roots democracy in action, with the revolutionaries debating and voting on a number of issues, such as collectivisation of farming and whether or not to throw their lot in with the regular Popular Army. They discuss the impact of Hitler and Stalin on the conflict and the nature of capitalism and the international workers' struggle. The participants comprise Spanish, English, Americans and a few others and they all worry about their struggle becoming corrupted.Ian Hart puts in a thorough, impressive performance, even suppressing that awful Liverpool accent to display quite some skill in the Spanish language. However, all of the swearing is ludicrous, probably anachronistic and completely unnecessary: did people really exchange insults in 1936 involving 'ass'? Does it improve the film? I would like to see Land and Freedom based on the life of George Orwell and perhaps a greater, less idealistic political exploration of the circumstances and events of the Spanish Civil War. Orwell is the man.