Main Cast: Ian Hart, Rosana Pastor, Icíar Bollaín, Tom Gilroy, Marc Martinez
Release Year: 1995
Country: DE/ES/UK
Run Time: 106 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
A reflective look at an idealistic young man's involvement in the Spanish Civil War, Land and Freedom combines wartime drama with impassioned political debate. Director Ken Loach, better known for his intimate portraits of working-class British life, begins on familiar turf in the present day, with a teenage girl sorting through the belongings of her recently deceased grandfather. She soon discovers her grandfather's involvement in the Spanish Civil War, and the film then flashes back to the 1930s to tell the story of young Dave Carr, intensely portrayed by Ian Hart. A dedicated young communist, Carr joins an international group of freedom fighters in order to wage the good war against fascism. The experience proves far less heroic than expected, however, as the fighters struggle with poor supplies, a lack of training, and internal discord. The traditional battles and romances of war drama follow, as Carr becomes involved in a tumultuous affair with a fellow fighter, but Loach and screenwriter Jim Allen give equal weight to more philosophical discussions about the nature and fate of socialism. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
Review
Given his socially conscious fimography, it might be expected that director Ken Loach, with the opportunity to make a movie about the Spanish Civil War, would populate it with valiant men fighting for the Loyalist cause, a la For Whom the Bell Tolls. Land and Freedom, however, is a more complex portrait of an event which has inspired very little film coverage. Jim Allen's script does more than suggest how disorganized the men who came to Spain in support of the Loyalists were, and how often they were greeted with either indifference or hostility by the Spanish citizenry. Dave Carr (Ian Hart) is an idealist who simply assumes that fighting the good fight will unite him and his international company of comrades; instead he learns of deep divisions within the Loyalists on everything from battle tactics to political philosophy. By the conclusion of Land and Freedom, the viewer is better equipped to understand how internal strife, as much as lack of training and equipment, doomed the Loyalist cause, no matter how lofty its intentions. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Frederic Pierrot - Bernard; Angela Clarke - Kitty; Rafael Diaz - Barracks Officer; Ian Hart - David; Mandy Walsh - The Militia; Dave Allen - On the Roof
Credit
George Fenton - Art Director, Llorenz Miquel - Art Director, Susie Figgis - Casting, Richard Rousseau - Casting, Daphne Dare - Costume Designer, Ana Alvar González - Costume Designer, Ken Loach - Director, Jonathan Morris - Editor, Ulrich Felsberg - Executive Producer, Gerardo Herrero - Executive Producer, Sally Hibbin - Executive Producer, George Fenton - Composer (Music Score), Ray Beckett - Musical Direction/Supervision, Martin Johnson - Production Designer, Barry Ackroyd - Cinematographer, Rebecca O'Brien - Producer, Reyes Abades - Special Effects, Jim Allen - Screenwriter
This article is about the Ken Loach film. For the Russian revolutionary organization, see Land and Liberty (Russia). For the Kenyan independence organization, see Mau Mau Uprising.
The film's narrative unfolds in a long flashback. David Carr has died at an old age and his granddaughter discovers old letters, newspapers and other documents in his room: what we see in the film is what he had lived.
Persuaded of the necessity of helping the Spanish Republicans in their fight against the fascistNationalist insurgence, Carr, a young unemployed worker and member of the Communist Party, leaves Liverpool and travels to Spain to join the International Brigades. He crosses the Catalan border and coincidentally ends up enlisted in a POUMmilitia commanded by Lawrence, in the Aragon front. In this company, as in all POUM militias, men and women — such as the young and enthusiastic Maite — fight together. In the following weeks and months he becomes friends with other foreign volunteers, like the French Bernard, and he falls in love with Blanca, a member of POUM, who is also the ideologue of his group.
After being wounded and recovering in a hospital in Barcelona, he finally joins — in accordance with his original plan and against the opinion of Blanca — the government-backed International Brigades, and he witnesses first-hand the Stalinist propaganda and repression against POUM members and anarchists; he then returns to his old company, only to see them rounded up by a government unit requiring their surrender: in a brief clash Blanca is killed. After her funeral he returns to Great Britain with a red neckerchief full of Spanish earth.
Finally the film comes back to the present, and we see Carr's funeral, in which his granddaughter throws the Spanish earth into his grave after speaking lines from "The Day Is Coming"[1], a poem by William Morris. Afterwards she performs a raised fist salute, honouring his beliefs.
According to Ken Loach, the most important scene of the film is the debate in an assembly of a village successfully liberated by the militia, which highlights one of the great strengths of Loach as a director in that it is a truly compelling encounter[clarification needed]. People from the actual village where the film was shot play peasant parts in the movie and express their thoughts freely (despite language difficulties), and a debate ensues about whether or not to collectivise the village land and that of the recently shot priest[who?]. An American with the POUM militia argues that the war effort must come first, suggesting that collectivisation and other revolutionary actions might hamper that effort. He mentions that if such actions and the slogans accompanying them continue, they will not gain the support of the liberal democracies such as the United States and Britain[clarification needed] ("You're scaring them," he says). The necessity of a contemporaneous war and revolution is expressed by a German militiaman, who says that 'in Germany revolution was postponed and now Hitler is in power'. In the end the villagers[who?] vote for collectivisation, thereby taking steps on a revolutionary path. In the anarchist and socialist controlled areas this kind of expropriation of land was common, as the civil war was accompanied by a social revolution[citation needed].
As in the above scene, various languages: Spanish , English and Catalan are spoken throughout the film, and subtitles are used selectively. Carr arrives in Spain without knowing any Spanish, but gradually picks it up — and luckily for him English is the lingua franca in his militia.
The social revolution was opposed by both the Soviet-supported communists and the democratic republicans and as the war progressed, the government and the communists were able to leverage their access to Soviet arms to restore government control over the war effort, both through diplomacy and force. A historical event, the bloody fight between Republicans and Anarchists for controlling the Telefónica building in Barcelona, has been chosen by Loach as an emblem of this internal conflict (See Barcelona May Days). Carr's progressive disenchantment starts from this meaningless fight, which he fails to understand because both groups were supposed to be on the same side. At one point he is guarding the Communist Party headquarters in Barcelona and engages in banter across the barricades with the anarchists opposite. He asks a Mancunian among them "Why aren't you over here with us?" In reply his compatriot asks him the same question and Carr answers "I don't know".
Another important moment inspired by actual events is the execution of a village priest for acting in favour of the Fascist side: he has broken the seal of confessions, telling the fascists where the anarchists were hiding and causing their deaths.
Most critics and viewers noted the similarity between the story narrated in this film and George Orwell's book Homage to Catalonia, in which the author wrote one of the more famous accounts of the war, that of his own experience as a volunteer in the ILP Contingent, part of the POUM militia, before the POUM's suppression by the increasingly powerful Communist Party.
