Land and Freedom

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Land and Freedom
Original title Land and Freedom
Country of production Germany , Great Britain , Spain
original language English , Spanish , Catalan
Publishing year 1995
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Ken Loach
script Jim Allen
production Rebecca O'Brien
music George Fenton
camera Barry Ackroyd
cut Jonathan Morris
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
Your time is running out, killer

Successor  →
What I've never told you before

Country And Freedom is a feature film by Ken Loach from the year 1995 . The film is clearly based on the war report My Catalonia by George Orwell .

action

Liverpool 1994 : A young woman finds her grandfather, David, lying unconscious on the sofa, dies on the way to the hospital. After his death, she found an old suitcase with letters, newspaper clippings, photographs and a red scarf filled with earth on the cupboard. She begins to reconstruct the life of her grandfather, unknown to her:

In 1936 the young unemployed David Carr, an English communist, decided to move to Spain to fight the Franco regime . Because he has crossed the border into Spain in Catalonia, he accidentally meets members of the POUM militia in a railroad car. He ends up in the POUM training camp in Barcelona and then joins a company under the leadership of Lawrence on the Aragon front. In this company women, like the enthusiastic Maite, and men fight on an equal footing. There are many foreign volunteers among the fighters, such as the French Bernard and the Irish Coogan, who has a love affair with the Spanish fighter Blanca. The common anti-fascism unites the fighters, so that the atmosphere is cooperative and friendly. Important questions of the fight are discussed and decided by vote. There is no saluting, officers are also elected. However, little happened in the front section. It's trench warfare. You face the Franco troops and watch yourself. Lice, boredom and poor equipment are the predominant problems.

When a village was liberated from Franco units, this group also suffered numerous victims. The reckless Coogan is shot dead by a Catholic priest when he asks David for a cartridge. David was reluctant to give it to him because he shouldn't shoot Franco soldiers who were using two women as shields in front of the church. He comforts Blanca and does not hide the fact that he feels responsible for Coogan's death. A love affair slowly develops between the two of them. The liberated farmers discuss in the village how they want to shape the future: division of the land of the landlord who has fled or collectivization, working together in a cooperative. You decide in favor of the latter by voting.

The POUM militiamen are being put under increasing pressure. They should integrate into the regular communist, Stalinist-ruled army. This is better equipped because it is equipped by the Soviet Union under Stalin. But they refuse to do so by voting. David falls victim to this bad equipment. His rifle explodes during a shooting lesson. He is badly injured in the upper arm and has to go to the hospital in Barcelona.

Blanca makes an appointment to meet him there after his recovery. After a night of love together that made the war forgotten, Blanca notices, because she finds his new uniform skirt, that David has joined the communist army, the International Brigade. She leaves him indignant and disappointed. David cannot explain to her that he expects this army to be more effective because of the better equipment.

But David does not come to the front in the fight against Franco, but is suddenly put in Barcelona in the street fight against anarchist militias, including the POUM (see Spanish Civil War - 1937). He hears of communist repression, murder and torture against anarchists. He does not understand the world anymore. Instead of fighting Franco, the anti-fascists are fighting themselves. Even the British guy lying on the balcony occupied by the POUM doesn't understand why he's here.

David returns to his POUM unit on the Aragon Front. Meanwhile, women are no longer allowed to fight. They cook and are nurses, as does Blanca. The group is ordered to launch an attack. But they cannot hold the position they have conquered. They are asking for reinforcements. It won't come. The permission to withdraw is given very late, so that the group is threatened with bleeding. The next day new military trucks with the best equipped soldiers arrive. But they are not supposed to support the POUM militia unit, but rather, forcibly disarm. Some militiamen do not want to surrender their weapons. During the turmoil, Blanca is shot by soldiers of the communist unit. David brings Blanca to her home village to be buried, takes Spanish soil with her in her scarf, tears up his ID card for the Communist Party of Great Britain and returns home.

The film closes with the funeral of David Carr in 1994. The granddaughter pours the Spanish soil on his coffin. She quotes verses from William Morris's poem "The day will come":

"... Come together for the only fight where no one is defeated,

Because even if many fall and die, the cause still wins. ... "

As she does so, she raises her fist, and some bystanders follow her, in honor of David Carr.

Reviews

  • Lexicon of international film : a documentary-style plea for democracy and freedom, carried out by convincing actors, which conjures up the utopia of a more just world.

Awards

The film screened in competition at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival and was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury . In the same year he was awarded the European Film Prize for best film of the year. In 1996 he received in France the César for Best Foreign Film, and together with Ulysses' Gaze the award of the Syndicat Français de la Critique de Cinéma as best foreign film . Rosana Pastor received the Goya for best actress in 1996 .

literature

  • Land and Freedom. Ken Loach's “Story from the Spanish Revolution”, film, discussion, story, director. Edited by Walter Frey. Berlin: edition tranvia 1996. ISBN 3-925867-20-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Admin: Chants for Socialists / Lieder der Arbeit. In: William Morris texts. July 25, 2015, accessed on July 14, 2019 (German).
  2. ^ Land and Freedom. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used