Jimmy's Hall

Since Poor Cow nearly 50 years ago Ken Loach has remained committed to social realist films about characters who survive on the edges of history. Perhaps that interest in the political and the marginal explains why his films are too little seen in this country. He often works in television and his last release, Looking for Eric, was about a working class man’s obsession with the soccer star Eric Cantona. That story was amusing and informative — I knew nothing about the sports star. In 2007, The Wind That Shakes the Barley featured Cillian Murphy as a medical student who becomes swept away by the Irish fight for independence in 1919-1921, and the ensuing civil war from 1922-1923. That was a rousing tale that made history personal though it was not entirely clear about facts. The title came from the famous Irish song: 
"Twas hard the woeful words to frame ...... READ MORE