Monday, January 28, 2008

The Wind, the Barley, etc.

As with everyone else, I thought this movie--wha wha--would seem to be a bit...dreary for my tastes. But, nonetheless...well, we'll move on.
I feel that this movie, as with the Decembrists song, seems also to be about perspective. Here we have two brothers Damien and the guy Teddy, both fighting for what they believe in. There isn't just an apparent parallel here, there's an absolute one. When Damien killed Chris O'Reilly, he knew he didn't want to but had to for the sake of his cause--his version of fighting for a free Ireland. Then Chris's mother said I don't wanna see you again man, and so we fast-forward to the end. And Teddy kills his brother Damien, even though he didn't want to (or did he?) but had to for the sake of his cause. And Damien's girl is like, I don't wanna see you again, you bastard. Similar. But exact. The movie doesn't continue beyond that point, and it's hard to see from this what the good side was and what the bad side was. When they were having the argument in the independent justice courts, I tended to see both aspects of the fight: we need money or we need to establish rules/legality/credibility. It's a tough situation. And the movie was able to (or the director/writer/whatever) to realistically remove itself from natural commentary on which side is best. Almost unbiased. There was no want at the end for...so who won? or anything like that. It was pretty clear that the fight was between the two brothers, with each having their own "vision". And that's that. Sympathy was shown to both, and there was no actual bad guy. Kudos to that aspect of the movie.

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