• Rating:
A cinematic life spent narrating and analyzing the challenging world of workers, which over the years has transformed into the world of "precariousness". The willingness of Ken Loach to dwell on the conditions of the working class has attracted various criticisms, actively involving him in politics: a few years ago, he demonstrated solidarity with a member of Rifondazione Comunista for opposing a decree by the Prodi government, not to mention all the small causes Loach has supported for the sustenance of certain realities around the world. "Land and Freedom" (1995) fits perfectly into the long directorial career of the Brit, also centered on the desire for redemption, on the difficult conditions of Spanish peasants, on the dual oppression of a people engaged in an impossible struggle.
Starting from the Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939) and taking inspiration from George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia", Loach narrates with clarity and harshness the life of David Carr, an English worker who decides to join the Spanish revolution. His decision is not driven by money or personal interests, but simply the desire to help people in difficulty, fighting for their land and their freedom. The filmmaker recounts this "stay" in Spain through letters that the niece finds in his home: a long journey into the past, a container of ideals and values to be transported into the present.
To achieve this, Ken Loach abandons the critique of English society that had characterized his films up to that moment ("Riff-Raff" and "Raining Stones" in particular), to narrate with his usual emotionally intense yet documentary-like gaze, the agony of all those small Spanish villages lost in the sand and sun of Aragon. With a rough directorial style, far from special effects and such amenities, Loach excels in describing a complex and suffering reality: the faded colors help bring us back to those sunny stretches where anarchist militiamen fought against Franco's fascists. However, the English director doesn't just stop at portraying the Spanish war but includes in the film all the significant discussions of that period: the Spanish POUM (a Marxist/Trotskyist-inspired party) embroiled in the resistance struggle without adequate weapons, Stalin's communists accusing the same POUM of supporting Franco, issues related to collectivization, private property, and applied socialism. All the doubts and conflicts typical of those years, with the fight between communism and freedom vs. fascism and oppression, are brought to the screen by Loach with analytical clarity and emotional immersion that we could define as bordering on perfection.
But what most strikingly impresses about "Land and Freedom" is its simple construction. A low-budget film that became a cult for a very small circle of cinephiles. A film experience far removed from glossy titles and various digital effects of today, light-years away from 3D and the spectacularizations that seem increasingly indispensable in recent years. The demonstration that before money, art emerges with ideas and humility.
From the choice of actors (all relatively unknown), to the great ability to faithfully and precisely depict the political and conceptual conflicts of Spain of the time, Ken Loach has produced what is considered one of his most accomplished feature films, if not his masterpiece. A film capable of vividly reviving all the feelings and difficulties of those men and women who, amid the dust of the Spanish heights, but more generally in every part of that war-torn Europe, gave their lives so that freedom could triumph.
"Join the battle, the only one that man cannot lose, because whoever falls and dies will be an example for those who triumph."
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