"May be the best political movie of recent years."-Harlan Kennedy, Film Comment."British director Ken Loach's most ambitious film to date, Land and Freedom follows a Liverpudlian [the excellent Ian Hart] to the Republican trenches and political treachery of the Spanish Civil War... The film's superb performances, gentle humour, human warmth, action sequences and beautifully tease-out love story should make this one of the must see art moves of the year..."--John Hopewell, Variety."Confirms Ken Loach as Britain's greatest contmporary filmmaker."-Ian Christie, Sight and Sound.
"[The film's] hope-filled innocent (Hart) thinks that by joining the P.O.U.M.-the organization of small Republican militia--he is fighting Franco. Instead, as he and we learn, Stalin is the super-foe. The USSR, by funding and supporting the International Brigade, is trampling on Spain's antifascist small fry to win the civil war for the Soviet sphere of influence. That big drama is cleverly orchestrated as 'noises off.' What we see and hear are the human repercussions. The loud debates in teh dust of battle; the Babel confusion of tongues and accents- British, French, American, Spanish-jabbing out irreconcilable views; the passionate despair of a final showdown between Hart's ragged army and the soldiers from the groomed superpower. Even the Anglo-Spanish love story, which could have been cornball, works. Somewhere between the dust and sweat and stillborn tears there is time for one human animal (Hart) to sneak a few shared emotions with another (Rosana Pastor's marvelously clipped and wary cmapanera)..."--Harlan Kennedy, Film Comment
(Great Britain/Spain/Germany, 1995, 106 min)
Classification: TBA
7:15 & 9:30 Fri Apr 5-Thur Apr 11
Please note that this is a premiere.
