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Lottery Of Life
Ken Loach's new film, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, sounds like a bundle of fun. According the the BBC, it's "unashamedly one-eyed, told entirely from the perspective of the Irish who turn to armed struggle after witnessing countless acts of brutality by British soldiers, who are seen to be indiscriminately violent."
The film's writer Paul Laverty says, "When I was at school I learned nothing about the underbelly of the British Empire and that is not an accident." Loach adds that the film will put the Ulster Troubles in "context" for British viewers. EURSOC hasn't seen the movie, but judging from the BBC's report and Loach's previous form, his latest film is likely to be as historically balanced as Mel Gibson's absurd "The Patriot" or "Braveheart."
Where would we be without film-makers to give us free history lessons? Well, not exactly free. The Wind That Shakes The Barley is proudly funded by the UK Film Council with money from the National Lottery.
Perhaps it's fair enough that IRA propaganda made with British lottery money, and perhaps it's indicative of our national penchant for self-flagellation that no-one objects to this. Besides, the British have a long record of funding Republican activists in Ulster.
Moreover, there's little doubt that were the UK Film Council's bigwigs to refuse to fund Loach's films, he'd go whinging to the French, who would be delighted to give him cash to make a film on how Blair's Britain was censoring dissident voices on the Irish "struggle."
But what are the chances of the UK Film Council throwing lottery cash at a project that depicted Ulstermen (to take a wildly random example) in a favourable light?
