Director Ken Loach (Sweet Sixteen, My Name is Joe) is masterful at delivering hard hitting movies that entertain and inform, while telling you something you might not know, but you should. 

In this case, we learn something about the formative years of the Irish Republican Army. To understand why a conflict evolves and how wounds can become so deep is hard to do but it seems that people are constantly trying, with great success. Think suicide bombers and the film Paradise Now.  

The Wind That Shakes the Barley is set in 1920s Ireland, where Britain rules with an iron fist. British forces are so intent on the Irish using their English names, that they beat a young man to death because he insists that his name is his given Irish name. Men are rounded up and shot, and women are raped. 

Damien (Cillian Murphy of Red Eye and Batman Begins) and his brother Teddy (Padraic Delaney, TVs “The Tudors”) stand by one another early on in the armed conflict. Damien is moved to give up medical school, and the two have the utmost respect for one another. How and why this changes over time is much of what the film is about. Depending on the side you are on, they are either patriots or terrorists. 

After a long and bloody struggle, eventually the Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed, giving Ireland dominion status within the British Empire. Damien remains committed to the cause because he sees the treaty as a phony peace in that the Irish still have no real power. Teddy, who has personally suffered more than his brother (early in the film Teddy is tortured by the British), thinks the time for reconciliation is at hand.  

The events leading up to the brothers going their different ways is relevant today, in the situation in the Middle East. So many hot buttons are touched upon in the film that it’s no surprise it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a textbook on the meaning of revolution.