Land and Freedom

1995
7.5| 1h49m| en| More Info
Released: 07 April 1995 Released
Producted By: Road Movies
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.

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Reviews

ShangLuda Admirable film.
ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Emil Bakkum Land and Freedom is a film of Ken Loach about the Spanish Civil war. It is certainly a war film, with lots of battle scenes, but nevertheless quite distinct from the stereotype battlefield spectacle. This is partly due to the director Loach, who has neither the urge nor the financial means to produce a large-scale report on battle-fields. However the main reason is the civil war itself, since the republic (the good guys) was defended by a peoples army, and not a professional one. In fact we witness the experiences of a militia, consisting of normal grown-up citizens, not the juvenile cannon fodder, that is crowding the average WW2 or Vietnam movie. When in Land and Freedom the militia attacks the trenches of the fascist troops, it is not a furious storm but a wearisome advancement, evidently by people whose physical conditions could have been better. The firing with their rifles seems unaimed and chaotic. At first I thought this was a display of bad acting, but in fact it is just the opposite. For the militia was composed of volunteers with little or no military training or background. Loach says in an interview, that the film is a critique on the stance of the republicans during the war. The resistance started as a collaboration between anarchist, Bolshevist and social-democrat groups, but soon the ideological differences started to cause growing frictions. Not surprisingly the Bolshevists were once again hoping to replicate the October revolution and seize power during the conflict. On the other hand the anarchists and syndicalists rejected any form of organization, and fully relied on the innate peoples will. Loach made this debate into the essential thread of the film. The story is like this: it is 1936. The British Communist Party recruits volunteers for international reserves of the republican army. David, who is a member of the BCP and out of work, travels to Spain and joins a militia of the POUM (apparently a Trotzkyist-anarchist fraction in the Spanish government). The militia consists of Spaniards (including two women), Frenchmen, Britons, an American, a German etc. They stay together for more than a year, and are remarkably spared the grief of casualties. At that time, and even during WWII, warfare did not yet have the professional intensity of the battlefields in Irak or Afghanistan. They are just killing time in their trenches. Even when a village is stormed, that is occupied by fascist troops, the enemy is already on the run. The number of fallen comrades in this action equals just one, and there is plenty of time for grief and a decent burial. Subsequently the militia joins the villagers in a debate about socialization of the agricultural land! Really, that are the syndicalists for you, they seem almost like Taliban. In the mean time, the government in Madrid realizes that this kind of defense will not win the war. (it could have ended in a long-lasting partisan guerrilla, but apparently in his later years Franco was able to mobilize sufficient social support). They try to put anarchist fractions like the POUM on a sidetrack, and eventually the anarchist militia are disarmed. Of course during this operation the Bolshevists resort to the well-known Stalinist methods of terror, including tortures. David has developed a (physical) liking for the anarchist Blanca, and tears apart his booklet of membership of the BCP (with stamps indicating your monthly payments, those good old days). Typical of the spirit in the militia is one of the final scenes, where they once more storm a fascist trench. Here the fighting gets tough, and the militia leader calls his superior by phone in order to complain about the uncomfortable conditions. Several militia members want a debate in order to consider a withdrawal. Later, when a superior officer actually orders the militia leader to withdraw, the leader wants to start a debate (in the middle of a fight, over the phone!) about the inconsistency of the orders! I find this scene particularly brilliant, reflecting the films subtlety and sarcasm. By the way, although modern warfare delegates much more responsibilities to the troops in the fields, obedience still remains a paramount requirement. Eventually Blanca is shot dead, and David returns home as a disillusioned man. What a mess! Nevertheless, the film confirms that the fascist troops are still the Hoesseins, and the republicans are still the Blairs. People interested in the Spanish Civil war should also see the documentary "The Spanish Earth" of director Joris Ivens and the excellent war film (if you fancy them) "Fünf Patronenhülsen" of director Frank Beyer (which includes the heart-rending Busch song "Die Jarama Front"!).
Eric Lee Though set in Spain during the time of the civil war of 1936-39, Loach's film belongs more to the genre of anti-Stalinist cinema than it does to films about Spain. The main theme of the film is the young man's discovery about the reality of the political movement to which he has devoted his life. And the climactic moment in the film is when he rips up his Communist Party membership card.The crimes of the Stalinists are portrayed throughout the film -- they deny decent, modern weapons to those sections of the front which they do not control; they actively engage in repression against the POUM and the anarchists in Barcelona; in the pages of the British Daily Worker which we briefly see on the screen, we are shown the daily barrage of lies they spread (such as Trotsky's 'support' for Franco fascism).Anyone who sees this film as simply a black-and-white, good vs evil portrayal of heroic young people aiding the brave Spaniards in their battle for freedom is missing what is, I believe, its main point. It is not primarily about Spain.Seeing a film like this, I cannot forget the more typical Hollywood portrayals (at least in the last generation) of Communists. A film like "The Way We Were" shows the American Communist Party only during those moments when its positions would today be considered palatable (supporting the Spanish republic, backing Roosevelt and the US war effort in World War II, and later calling for nuclear disarmament).It doesn't show the time of the Moscow Trials, nor the real role played by the Soviet Union and its agents in Spain, nor the Communist Party's opposition to fighting Hitler and the Nazis in 1939-41, nor the post-war period when the Party did what it could to encourage nuclear proliferation by passing on atomic secrets to Stalin.Land and Freedom does try to show one of the Comintern's uglier moments, to its credit.A film like this was made possible by the fact that Loach comes out of the British far left, and the British far left has long been dominated not by Stalinists but by their Marxist opponents -- primarily the Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Whatever disagreements I or others may have with the SWP (and they are many), at least they rejected Stalinism.What we need are more films like this showing the real role played by Communist Parties all during the history of the Soviet regime. For example a film set in any European country during the period between September 1939 and June 1941 (the time of the Hitler-Stalin pact) which honestly portrays Communist parties as allies of the Nazis (even in occupied countries like Norway and France) would be welcome.
friedman-8 Land and Freedom is one of the few non-Spanish feature films about the Spanish Civil War. This is a shame, but at least this one film almost makes up for the paucity of cinematic treatments of this event and period.The story bears some superficial resemblance to George Orwell's experiences, as detailed in Homage to Catalonia -- a British leftist joins the POUM militia and gets mixed up in the events of May, 1937 and the suppression of the party. But Loach fleshes the story out with some wonderful characters and a rare, truly moving wartime love story.The film is shot in a cinema-verite style that really emphasizes the grit, the horror and heroism of the characters' resistance to fascism. The leads, Ian Hart and Rosana Pastor give wonderful performances. Pastor's portrayal of a woman motivated by idealism, economic need and more than a bit of world-weariness, is incandescent. Yes, she often spout slogans, but that's how people often speak in those situations.Marc Martinez and Eoin McCarthy are excellent as the militia section commander and the experienced Irish volunteer, respectively.My one real quibble is that, perhaps by necessity, Loach compressed the really complex issues surrounding the May Days and the suppression of the POUM. The Communist Party were the bad guys, but things were much more complicated than that at the national level in Spain. Nationally, with the organization of the International Brigades and Soviet support for the republic, they were the good guys.From David Carr's and Blanca's perspective, however, the national level was not important, so there really is a great deal of honesty in this film.
GwydionMW I think this is the first film about the Spanish Civil War since For Whom The Bell Tolls. Which would have been good, if it hadn't chosen to bang the Trotskyist drum and ignore the real fighters.It starts with an historic blunder - the rising was not led by General Franco. It was organized by General Mola and General Franco sat on the fence till the last minute. But the Military-Rightists - not all fascists - had the sense to rally round their most successful leader.The important front was Madrid, which held off the enemy till the very end. POUM, whose tale is told in this film, were a small force on a front that barely moved throughout the war.That a Communist Party member should accidentally join POUM is no more likely than a Free Presbyterian accidentally taking Catholic communion. Besides, the Communist Party had a well-organized network taking members and sympathizers to the International Brigades. POUM had a smaller network which in Britain was linked to a body called the Independent Labour Party, which is how George Orwell got there. The hero's adventures in Spain somewhat shadow Orwell's, but have been reinvented to make him more likable, I suppose.The telephone exchange was taken over because the Anarchists were tapping everyone's phone. This was done with the authorization of the legal elected government of Catalonia, a government trying desperately to rally military power against the Fascists, who were methodically conquering one Republican enclave after another. The bombing of Guernica and the fall of the Basque Republic occurred at much the same time. A bloody stupid time for leftists to get into a fight with an anti-Fascist government, I'd have thought.