My! Wild Irish rows in "The Wind That Shakes the Barley"

Rebel, terrorist. Potato, potahto.

"The Wind That Shakes the Barley" (Weinstein, unrated, $19.95) doesn't leave you guessing which side it falls on with the Irish fight for independence in 1920. Veteran director Ken Loach's remarkable and harrowing film stars blue-eyed pretty boy Cillian Murphy (he can actually act) as a young doctor who ditches plans for a medical career in London after he witnesses British soldiers commit one atrocity after another. As the occupying force cracks down, he becomes more of a true believer and rises in the ranks of the Irish Republican Army — whose extremism eventually pits him against his own brother.

"Wind" didn't shake the box office. Didn't even crack $2 million in the States. But it copped the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Hey, those French know something about occupations. (See: Algeria.) As striking as the photography and the Irish countryside are, you want to see this on DVD anyhow. Subtitles are critical with those thick accents.

In Loach's audio commentary with professor Donal O'Driscoll, the film's historical adviser, both men respond to criticism from Britain's right-wing press by noting that the atrocities depicted are all documented. In fact, Loach says he played them down. For extra realism, he hired Irish actors and used real ex-soldiers to play the soldiers.

"If they bring their savagery over here, we will meet it with a savagery of our own," one guerrilla promises.

Comments Loach: "This sequence of violent action, reprisal, followed by a reprisal the other way, is a classic pattern of what happens when you have an army of occupation facing a civilian population that doesn't want you there, and one act of violence leads to another. ... It's a situation that just always leads to a downward spiral of increasing violence."

History from O'Driscoll: Sinn Fein won the 1918 election by a vast majority and declared Ireland's independence. It's interesting, observes Loach, who is English, that the "democratic wish was ignored by the British government. And it's maybe a reflection on how great powers view democracy, and that they respect it when it gives them the judgment they want and they ignore it when the people decide something different."

And just in case it ain't clear enough what they're also talking about, O'Driscoll draws a parallel with Ireland and Muslim countries, explaining that Catholicism became a badge of identity at the time, as England was a Protestant state.

Plan a double-bill with "Michael Collins," pour yourself a bowl of Lucky Charms and make a day of it.

Also Tuesday: "30 Rock" season one and season three of "The Office" (both Universal, $49.98). "Georgia Rule" (Universal, R, $29.98). And from the Criterion Collection, Jim Jarmusch's "Night on Earth" (1991, R) and "Stranger than Paradise" (1984, R), both $39.95.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com