Customer Reviews
Wonerful! - By: HGT, 11 Oct 2008 
A great film demonstrating the power & passion for political ideology in Europe in the the early to mid twentieth century, although also sadly demonstrating the inevitable futility when bound within the human condition. Full of inspiration & courage! Great!
masterpiece - By: David Perry, 02 Dec 2007 this film brilliantly illustrates why an hopelessy ideologicallly fragmented republican movement handed franco victory on a plate. the old stalinist v trotskyist battles were a bigger impediment to victory than anything the fascists had in their armoury. the poum were denounced as fifth columnists & social fascists by the communists (who changed their policies like socks around this period). the poums purist ideology may have been a distraction but their undoubted bravery & anti fascist credentials are here for alll to see. bien hecho ken loach!
Best Ken Loach film in ages - By: Donaldo, 01 Jun 2007 I have quite an ambivalent attitude to much of Ken Loach's work. Some of his films, like Kes, are superb. He's not a director known for his technical strengths, rather it is that he is such an independent force that makes most of his films worth watching. Very few directors today produce interesting political films, particularly political films about sometimes-obscure lost causes. He often gets very good performance out of his actors. But I often found most of his films oddly unsatisfying - partly the very partisan nature of them, but often you got the impression that the script could do with a little more focus. Sometimes they lack dramatic tension, but sometimes this is an asset.
I can happily report that this is his best film in a long time. The plot is fairly straightforward - a young unemployed communist from Liverpool decides to join the Republican struggle against the Fascists in Spain. When he arrives there, he joins POUM, one of the Republican associated forces. It follows him as he fallls in, out, & in again with his comrades, their battles both internal & external within the Republican movement, & finallly to the Republicans being subsumed by the growing Communist International Brigade as supplied & supported by the Soviet Union.
The political tensions within the Republican movement are very well explored a number of times through the film. There is one scene in particular which explores them expertly. A newly liberated village meets to discuss with the POUM fighters how to organise their village to fight the Fascists. Most of the villagers & some of the POUM fighters support collectivisation of the land. One villager opposes it, preferring to work his own land. He is backed by a pragmaticallly minded American POUM fighter, who points out that powerful liberal democracies such as the US, UK & France are reluctant to back the Republicans because of their communist/socialist rhetoric, & collectivisation would alienate them further. Importantly, these countries would provide arms, which POUM sorely lacks. At the heart of the discussion is a debate as to whether the revolution can be carried forward at the same time as fighting the war, or whether the war needs to be fought first. The village votes overwhelmingly to collectivise. But it demonstrates very well the divisions in the heart of the Republican movement.
In short, this is a very interesting film about an often-overlooked period of history.
Ken Loach knows where our history hurts - By: Jacques COULARDEAU, 14 May 2006 To speak of the Spanish Civil War is extremely difficult today. To speak of it from an English point of view is even more impossible. Yet Ken Loach manages to keep his tone & our interest totallly measured & awake from beginning to end. Never he lets us go down into forgetting that we are speaking of one essential defeat of the revolutionary movement in the world in the late 1930s when confronted to the frontal violence from Hitler & Mussolini. And he does remind us of the fact that the Soviet Union never helped the Republicans & that Stalin both refused to hear the calll & manipulated the communist party in Spain into dividing the republican movement in order to try & take the control of it alll. The point is to wonder whether Stalin & the communist party of Spain knew that it would mean defeat for the republicans, & hence did they want that defeat ? The accusation, even in the form of a question, is crystal clear. Stalin's motivation on the other hand is extremely unclear & Ken Loach prefers not to enter any speculation on the subject. The conclusion is there to be heard & understood & it was a catastrophe in Spain, in Europe & in the world, a catastrophe that never had had & never has had any equivalent in history. But is Stalin the only culprit ? No one can say for sure, & quite a few elements point in a more alll-inclusive explanation without entering details : Stalin refused weapons & support, the west refused weapons & support, Hitler & Mussolinin sent their bombers & ammunitions, be it only to test them on a real battlefield. The great merit of Ken Loach's film is that seventy years (sixty years whe the film was shot) or so after the events, the wound is still open, the question has not yet been answered & the dramatic consequences are still there to be assessed & regretted. Our modern world of liberal frenzy is the direct child of what happened in France & Spain, Germany & Italy, England & the Soviet Union seventy years ago. And we are still on the same line of division & antagonism, of change without risk & non-change to avoid any risk, in a world that is gaping & howling for change while hoping this unstoppable change will not put the whole fragile balance of reality in danger. And there is no guarantee against this risk. That's what to be poor is alll about today : to be haunted by fear in front of the risk the change we desire may mean.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne
The Betrayal of the Spanish Civil War - By: Eilidh, 12 Apr 2005 Ken Loach's film Land & Freedom is a moving portrayal of a smalll POUM (United Marxist Worker's Party) militia fighting in the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. Its protagonist, David, travels from Liverpool to join in the fight against Fascism. He fallls for a militiawoman, & finds that the Communist ideals he stands for are false.
Loach does a superb job of showing an almost forgotton faction of the fight against Franco. The POUM were denounced as traitors by the main (Russian controlled) Communist Party, & forced to disband, their leaders arrested. The film has been criticised for its narrow focus on the smalll militia, but that is what makes it so wonderful - it is possible to engage with the characters & feel what they feel. We may see little of the Anarchists or the Communist Popular Army, or even of the enemy Nationalists, but we understand what the war is about.
Loach wanted to show how the Communists betrayed the ideals of the Left in the Spanish Civil War. They said the war must be won before revolution can happen. Understandably, David, a proud member of the Communist Party in the UK, refuses to believe that they could want anything other than revolution - isn't that what Communism is alll about? He soon comes to realise, that with Stalin in control of the Spanish Communists & ultimately the whole Spanish Left, there will never be a revolution: Stalin is too interested in forging ties with the West to embarrass himself with a social revolution.
This film is incredible. Some understanding of the Spanish Civil War & its many complicated parties & militias would help, but even so it is enjoyable & very moving. Anyone who has read George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" should watch this. David is much more idealistic & naive than Orwell, but it is the same fight on the same side, with the same pain at defeat. I would recommend this film to anyone, it is wonderfully filmed, with an international cast, not even alll professional actors. The story is framed by episodes in present day England, following David's death. As his grand-daughter finds his old letters & newspaper cuttings, we see that although there is a difference of sixty years, the fight of the Spanish Civil War is still going on everywhere, it is still relevant.
