CINEMA: Derek Malcolm
THE IDEA that the left’s fight against Franco in Spain was defeated, not by fascist powers but by Stalin’s betrayal of true socialism, is not one held by all those who took part in what was as much a civil war as a left-right struggle.
But it is one espoused by George Orwell in Homage To Catalonia and by Ken Loach and Jim Allen in Land and Freedom.
This, if labels must apply, is a Trotskyite version of the Thirties struggle and it would take a better historian than me to confirm or deny it. What one can say about Loach’s most expensive and expansive film ever – a British, Spanish and German co- production – is that it triumphantly does what it is supposed to do, which is to tell a half-forgotten but still revelatory story of our times in a way which personalises but does not trivialise it.
The story is that of a young man, roused by a communist party meeting, who volunteers to join the Republican struggle. To him, it’s a fight between socialism and fascism. But he gradually begins to realise it is hardly as simple as that.
Armed only with antique rifles, he and his French, Irish and American comrades in the Poum militia begin to fight a messy, almost incoherent war.
He falls in love with a Spanish girl and is wounded. And before long he understands that the Republican cause is being betrayed by Stalin and that groups like Poum are considered to be “social fascists”.
Loach’s and Allen’s depiction of both the war and the gradual betrayal is direct, passionate and formidably informed by political conviction.
One of the great masterstrokes of the film is the long argument they dare to include, between the Poum soldiers and the inhabitants of a captured village, about whether to collectivise the former landowner’s estate.
No Hollywood film would dare contemplate this lengthy sequence, but it is the key to Land And Freedom’s real drama. The film posits the thought that politics is worth talking about, and causes are still worth arguing.
Elsewhere, the war is illustrated with battle scenes that look more realistic than usual, simply because they are so indeterminate when looked at from the footsloggers view.
Needless to say, the cast, headed by Ian Hart as the young communist and Rosanna Pastor as the Spanish girl, possess the kind of acting ability that makes them look as if they are not acting at all. The ensemble playing is outstanding.
Perhaps this is why the film won a standing ovation at Cannes, though I rather think it is also because of Loach’s capacity to believe in causes which so many people now have either guiltily rejected or conveniently forgotten.
Here, once again, is someone who still has the faith and is a formidable film-maker too. Why did the jury at Cannes leave it out of the prize list?
What one should add about Land And Freedom is that it is not one of Loach’s most seductive offerings, like Kes, Riff-Raff or Raining Stones.
Only occasionally does he make you laugh, while at the same time making you think. But his asides are as memorable as his central arguments.
This is one of his most openly political films, not drily immersed in history, but angrily so.
And whether you believe his version of the truth or not, you have to admit after seeing it that the Spanish civil war was a reverberating part of the story of our century and should be remembered better than it is today.