The Wind that Shakes the Barley

The Husband and I had something planned every night this week. Guess how happy I was when we picked up the mail and there it was...shining like a beacon of hope in a long night of slogging away at social obligations! Netflix (can you hear the choir of heavenly angels?)! I had ordered up some travel channel favorites and The Wind that Shakes the Barley. It's that wee Irish independent that caused such a ruckus at the Cannes film festival a year ago.

Preface: Before I begin to tell you how amazing and wonderful and bittersweet this movie is--you should know that before I settled on Literature in school, I had set out to be a scholar in Irish History. I know. It's not for everyone... but it's lovely.

So. I thoroughly loved this movie. It's beautifully filmed, magnificently acted, fantastically written and fairly accurately representative of the happenings of the time. It's deceptively simple and assumes that the audience will understand Irish history/culture/character enough to understand without all that explaining to do. It's dramatic, poignant, violent, and at times frightening. It gives you hope only to take it away again. It is, in short, a wonderful film.

I loved it from beginning to end, but then Ireland is where I would live if I could choose of all the places on the Earth. It was invigorating to remember these things that I had learned once upon a time, and it was great to share that with the Husband.

That said, when the movie ended, I turned to him and smiled and said, "What did you think?" He looked at me (like a deranged cat) and said, "Well, I'm thoroughly depressed now."

Sorry, honey. Good news though! Tonight, fondue party! yay!