Customer Reviews

Land & Freedom [VHS]

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For most progressive-minded folks, the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) was the first salvo in the global struggle that eventually crushed facism and nazism. Yet, there was a dark side to the "good fight." Stalin cynically twisted and manipulated the "Popular Front" movement to suit his personal megalomania. He used Soviet military/financial aid to the Spanish Republic and the organizational might of the Comintern (Communist International) as the means of securing power for his lackeys in the Spanish Communist Party and, thereby, extend his sphere of influence. This power play resulted in the brutal repression and murder of many dedicated anti-facists on the Left who opposed Stalinism with equal fervor.

"Land & Freedom" beautifully tells the story of an English communist worker, who like hundreds of other young men and women from around the world, goes to Spain to fight for his principles. Yet, his experiences there teaches him a bitter lesson in political reality: those seeking absolute power, regardless of what they call themselves, are the real enemies of freedom.

This film was clearly inspired by "Homage To Catalonia," George Orwell's chronicle of his own experiences in the Spanish Civil War. Like Orwell, the film's hero joins the militia of the POUM(Spain's anti-Stalinist Marxist-Leninist party)and comes to witness first-hand the betrayal of the anti-facist struggle by the Stalinist forces.

All in all, this is a well-researched and well-written story offered up with superb acting amd directing. It was especially poignant for me as I had the privilege of knowing folks who served in the militias of the CNT-FAI, the Spanish anarchist-syndicalist labor movement. This film brought to mind their sacrifice and heroism in the face of overwhelming odds.

"Land & Freedom" is a film everyone should see.

"Land & Freedom" is the first commericial film I've seen that doesn't offer the standard one-dimensional portrayal of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) as simply the prelude to World War II. Nor does it flinch from taking a hard look at the way that the Stalinist Communist Party undermined, betrayed and brutually suppressed their leftist political rivals in the Anti-Facist movement to secure absolute power. Here we get a glimpse of the bitter social struggle that sparked the war. Here we see, in beautifully understated dramatic realism, the humanity, selfless idealism and touching naivete of the thousands of young people from around the world that rushed to Spain to fight facism.

While the film's story is well-researched, written and presented, I think it loses viewers who are not familiar with the complex historical background of the Spanish Civil War nor the intricate ideological maze of the diverse political movements and points of view represented. "Land & Freedom" (which, by the way, was one of the slogans of the Spanish anarchist movement, the CNT-FAI, and not the Trotskyite POUM which the film's hero joins) tries to offer a comprehensive overview of the aforementioned. Unfortunately, it often comes across as a jumble of arcane acronyms and arguments.

One key point: the formation of the democratic peasant and workers collectives portrayed in the film actually took place under the auspices of the anarchist CNT-FAI (which, at the time, was the largest and most influential labor movement in Spain)and not the POUM. The Marxist POUM, while allied to the CNT-FAI, actually opposed this effort as detrimental to the creation a united anti-facist front.

This aside, "Land & Freedom" is great film. I highly recommended it.

In 1936 Franco and three other fascist generals, aided by Hitler and Mussolini, attempted a military coup against the democratically elected Spanish republican government. A broad political spectrum of anti-fascist groups opposed Franco. Opposition ranged from republicans, such as Ortega y Gassett, to anarchists, trades unionists, socialists, and communists. Because the army itself had revolted, people banded together to form militias to defend the freedom of their nation. The great Western "Democracies" refused to aid in this battlethey feared that power of the people. Starved for support, the republican forces received their only official aid from Mexico and the USSR. All over the world, however, idealists who believed in democracy and in the ability of people to work together for a better world, made their way to Spain to fight against International Fascism.

Land and Freedom follows the story of Dave Hart, a working-class British Communist, who leaves his girlfriend to help stop fascism. Hart does not get assigned to the International Brigade (a Stalinist Communist militia), and ends up in a militia of foreign volunteers, loosely affiliated with the POUM, a non-Stalinist Marxist group. They fight alongside anarchists and anybody else who will oppose Franco. The unit votes on matters, officers are accorded no special privileges-the traditional hierarchical structures are absent.

In this millieu, Dave writes home about the struggle, the frustration of being poorly armed, about comradery. We watch him falling in love with Blanca, one of the other soldiers. After he is wounded, he encounters the Stalinist brigades he had hoped to join. The movie begins to tell the story of how the democratic forces of the Spanish Republic were undermined and destroyed by the Stalinist elements. This point is driven home with a vengeance.

In many ways, this movie dramatizes George Orwell's experiences in the civil war, as told in his Homage to Catalonia. Both Dave and George volunteered to fight on the Republican side, both ended up in POUM militia units, both were wounded, and both were purged and endangered by the Stalinists who gained control by deciding who to arm and who to arrest. A story line that departed from Orwell and showed us more of the "People's" revolution, showed us workers running factories for themselves, showed us campesinos collectively farming, showed us schools that taught children with dignity and respect-such a movie would have paid more homage to the indefatigable spirit of the Spanish people and the innovative courage they showed in the face of overwhelming odds. Anarchists receive little mention in the movie, occasional footnotes at best. This is unfortunate, as some of the most interesting phenomena about the Spanish civil war center on the anarchist and syndicalist movements.

In one scene, anti-fascist forces from different parties engage in a firefight, alternately shooting at and insulting each other. This, as much as Hitler's Stukas and Mussolini's support for Franco, allowed the forces of democracy to be crushed under jackboots in Spain. Totalitarian forces have one answer, one ideology. They all march to the same drum. Free people have many ideas, many ideals, and value different solutions to problems. If people are ever to govern themselves in a way that maximizes individual liberties, this conundrum must be solved.

In Spain, the fascists won. The failure of the United States, England, and France to provide aid for the republican forces allowed Hitler and Mussolini to flex their muscles without challenge or reprisal. It does not seem unlikely that fascism may have been contained and WW II prevented had the ostensibly "Democratic" nations come to the aid of democracy in Spain.

Frequently movies have foreign nationals speaking English in a foreign accent. Land and Freedom did not do this. Individuals spoke their native tongues with native accents. When the language was not English, subtitles were added. (Although it might have been nice to have subtitles for some of the thick "English" accents!) I find this greatly preferable to speaking English with an accent-it allows the poeia of the foreign language to add emotional character to the film that would otherwise be missing.

Currently, the movie is not available in DVD. This is unfortunate. It's the story of a powerful cusp in Western history, and the telling grips us and demands that we consider our own ideals, our own grasp of freedom, our own willingness to sit quitely by, watching Survivor Outback while our own nation experienced the coup d'etat of December 2000.

Five stars for content. Four-and-a-half stars for accuracy. Five stars for telling a gripping story that left me with tears in my eyes as the credits rolled.

(If you'd like to dialogue about this movie or review, please click on the "about me" link above and send me email. Thanks!)

Having talked extensively with survivors from the International Brigades and with Spanish Republican refugees, I find this film a very accurate rendering of the events which surrounded the suppression of the Anarchists in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. This film is also very close to George Orwell's vision of Stalin's betrayal of revolution, which set the grounds for Animal Farm and 1984. I recommend Orwell's book Homage to Catalonia to whomever found Land and Freedom of interest.

I had heard about this film by director Ken Loach a few years before getting to see it, and I can't emphasize how impressive the film is - it not only has realistic war drama, but examines and expresses the complexities of one of the greatest problems in the 20th century - the struggle of working class people for some kind of system other than capitalism that was not tainted with the authoritarianism and anti-humanism of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin's USSR or Mao's mainland China.

Regardless of the downplaying by right-wing "business as usual" extremists like Angel Garralda Ortega (who wrote a review that attacked this movie below), there really was (and still is) a libertarian communist movement - made up of anarchists - that was based on the idea of worker's shrugging bosses and landlords off their back - not forcibly banning exploitation with the use of the state and it's laws, but rather the libertarian idea of not letting oneself be exploited, and not exploiting others - abandoning the essence of capitalism in an anti-authoritarian manner.

Also, Mr. Ortega has it wrong - the sporadic killings from the Republican side at the opening of the Spanish Civil War only amounted to some 3 or 4 thousand deaths of Fascist supporting landlords and Spanish catholic church officials who had orders to kill the libertarians and republicans on sight. The anarchist CNT organization opposed such vigilantism and punished those individuals that did it. Contrast this with the hundreds of thousands to millions of tortured and executed republicans, libertarians, liberals, workers, small businessmen, progressive Catholics, protestants, and so on who opposed Franco after the civil war's end in 1939. Also, the POUM was not trotskyist. It was an independent socialist organization that had broken from Trotsky, and it's leading figure, Andrés Nin, was executed by Stalinists - like so many militia fighters such as anarchist Camillo Berneri.

In another Amazon review, Jonas Liljeström of Gothenburg, Sweden has explained the basic point I am making better than I could:

"Historians who attempt to rehabilitate Franco's reputation often tend to overlook the fact that whereas the Republicans generally tried to avoid unnecessary acts of brutality during the war, the Nationalists did exactly the opposite. Mass killings, rapes, looting and wanton destruction were commonplace as they terrorised the civilians in the newly conquered areas, trying to discourage them from putting up a resistance. The repression of political opponents continued virtually throughout the duration of the Franco regime.

The fact that Franco fought communism is no reason to glorify him. After all, Hitler did the same, but the homicidal aspects of his politics are so blatantly obvious that it would be quite impossible to depict him as anything resembling a heroic figure. In my opinion, defending Franco is as outrageous from an ethical point of view as it would be to defend Hitler, Mussolini or Stalin."

But I digress... this film accurately shows how there was a popular libertarian socialist revolution in Madrid and Barcelona in Spain in 1936 that was crushed by Stalinists a year later, leading to the inevitable disheartenment and loss of the civil war by those who wanted to preserve liberty and democracy.

The actors in this film are likely to be unfamiliar to US viewers, but I know that the lead, Ian Hart, was later in the first Harry Potter film.

Be sure to also see the magnificent Spanish Civil War film "Libertarias" directed by Vicente Aranda. It's focus is more squarely on the anarchist CNT, instead of the independent Marxist POUM.

Artificial Eye is releasing a region 2 DVD of this film, available from the UK version of Amazon.

I very strongly recommend this excellent drama as one of the best ways to learn about the Spanish Civil War.

I read the reviews here at Amazon and bought the video. Not too shabby. I was hoping for some more beautiful 'eye-popping' battle sequences, but instead I got several scenes of heated political debates. Not a bad trade, really!

So if you're a youngster like me, and looking for a great war movie, with lots of typical blood and guts battle sequences, look elsewhere. The movie's still a great place to start if you're interested in the history of the Spanish Civil War, and the whole Marxist global uprising in general. And those heated debates are great :) I don't believe I've ever seen a film where soldiers return from battle and then start up talk on ideology and international revolution..

I rate this movie as one of the best regarding the Spanish Civil war. I really think it is very documented and shows a corner of that tragedy that needs more exposure.

The only small critizism to the writer of Land and Freedom is that it follows too close the steps of George Orwell in its masterfull Homage to Catalunya and the adventures of the hero of Land and Freedom are too similar to the autobiographic adventures of Orwell, also it oversimplifies the idealism of the social reforms that the anarkists and trotzkists were performing in the valleys of Aragon and the Ebro, disregarding the violence that sometimes fell upon their opositionists or presumed landlords. It was a revolution and as such it had its share of idealists , martirs and also criminals and violentists.
But anyhow the movie is a masterpiece.

An objective film about a forgotten civil war. Loach is very sincere and makes as thinking that tyrans and fascists were in both parts of the front, that winning a battle or "entering the Winter Palace" is not the end but the beginning of a long march, which ends in a new tyranny, often worse than the previous one. It's a must, all the thinking people must see it

Ken Loach is a terrific filmmaker, the rare director and writer who is able to breathe life into scenes that pivot on political dialogue without being didactic, contrived, or overly intellectual. And this is one of his great films. If you're interested in the Spanish Civil War, the power of class, or great historic cinema, then this is a must see film. It has much of the power Orwell's HOMAGE TO CATALONIA but without Orwell's somewhat antiseptic and Anglo-centric narrative. At any rate, a great film!

This movie captures the real spirit of the socialists, anarchists and communists, the pre-mature anti-fascists as they were known, who went to Spain between 1936-1939.

As Germany and Italy used Spain as testing ground for their pre-WWII military tactics, the allies denied their own citizens the right to go and help the fledgling republic in Spain.

But more than just a premature battle against fascism, Spain was a revolutionary experiment, as important as the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.

Loach captures this with his political lens wide open. The debates and very real struggles to create a revolution whilein the midst of a civil war cries out for this movie, and this has a feel of being there as it happened.

The world looked on, and workers broke their own nations laws to help the revolution is dramaticly recreated in the very villages where it had happened.

Jim Allen who wrote this film, and who recently passed away, saw it as a labour of love. And the dynamism between characters shows that his ear has given voice to the stories he collected from those few volunteers that returned, and even fewer who are alive today.

There is passion and adventure and politics, what more can you ask for in a movie.