Ken Loach Appreciation Hour.

The British film maker Ken Loach's new film, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, is apparently in the running for the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year. Loach's films are always provocative, and they aren't exactly feel-good fare. While Loach tends to stick around European locales (mainly the UK and Ireland), Bread and Roses deals with LA office cleaners and their struggle with both unionization and immigration (Adrian Brody co-stars as a union organizer), and Carla's Song moves from the UK to Nicaragua in the 1980's (with Robert Carlyle as a bus driver so intrigued by Carla that he travels with her to Nicaragua in the middle of the US-funded Contra insurgency).

Loach's new film is set during the early years of the Irish Republic -- building up to the 1922 Civil War -- and it should be interesting given that Loach has already worked with Irish themes before in 1990's Hidden Agenda, set in Northern Ireland (Frances McDormand stars) and very much about the troubles. Loach's producer, Rebecca O'Brien, highlights the connection and also the general technique of Loach films:

'It's not a story like 'Michael Collins', O'Brien continues. 'It's not seeking that sort of biographical accuracy, but rather will express the themes of the period. This is the core of the later Troubles, which is why it's so fascinating to make.'

Loach tends to focus not on the big historical figures but on the small-part players, the ordinary men and women caught up in the events. Their experiences are used to bring large themes into focus; for instance, Carla's Song could certainly be characterized as a love story between the Scottish bus driver and the Nicaraguan exile, but Loach takes that basic human tale -- a tale told forever over and over again -- and puts it in the context of cross-cultural tensions and a proxy war by the United States, bringing out political themes that you don't find in, say, Pretty Woman or Runaway Bride.

I'm looking forward to this film's release in the USA.