Land and Freedom: A Film Review

    Land and Freedom is a 1995 film directed by Ken Loach and written by Jim Allen. The film narrates the story of David Carr, an unemployed worker and member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, who decides to fight in the Spanish Civil War for the republicans, a coalition of Socialists, Communists and Anarchists against a nationalist coup d'etat. The film won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.  The film was also nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

    The film's narrative unfolds in a long flashback. David Carr has died at an old age and his granddaughter discovers old letters, newspapers and other documents in his room: what we see in the film is what he had lived. Carr, a young unemployed worker and member of the Communist Party, leaves Liverpool and travels to Spain to join the International Brigades. He crosses the Spanish border in Catalonia and coincidentally ends up enlisted in a POUM militia commanded by Lawrence, in the Aragon front. In this company, as in all POUM militias, men and women â such as the young and enthusiastic Maite â fight together. In the following weeks and months he becomes friends with other foreign volunteers, like the Frenchman, Bernard and the Irishman, Coogan and the latter's girlfriend Blanca â with whom David Carr later falls in love â also a member of POUM, and also the ideologue of his group. After being wounded and recovering in a hospital in Barcelona, he finally joins â in accordance with his original plan and against the opinion of Blanca â the government-backed International Brigades, and he encounters the Soviet propaganda and repression against POUM members and anarchists; he then returns to his old company, only to see them rounded up by a government unit requiring their surrender: in a brief clash Blanca is killed. After her funeral he returns to Great Britain with a red neckerchief full of Spanish earth. Finally the film returns to the present and we see Carr's funeral, in which his granddaughter throws the Spanish earth into his grave after speaking lines from "The Day Is Coming", a poem by William Morris . Join in the battle wherein no man can fail, For whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still prevail. Afterwards she performs a raised fist salute, honoring his beliefs.

Land And Freedom