FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Ken Loach - Land And Freedom 

The Spanish Civil War is essential for every socialist and for the entire history of socialism. Ken Loach pays tribute to this and has made nothing less than one of the best films of its time with Land And Freedom! The story begins in Liverpool in 1994. It begins with the death of Dave Carne. Dave had reached the age of 80, living alone in a tower block. A member of the working class. His granddaughter Kim, a 20-year-old woman, opens a box of memorabilia. They are newspaper cuttings and letters from the time of the workers' movement until the Spanish Civil War. Among the souvenirs is even a handful of Spanish soil, wrapped in red cloth (of course). Dave (Ian Hart), latterly unemployed and a member of the Communist Party went to Spain at the time to fight loyalists. In Barcelona he joined a Marxist revolutionary group fighting with guns. So we feel ourselves part of this group, fighting side by side with Dave - thanks to Ken Loach's realistic style. The hero even has an affair with a beautiful fighter (Rosana Pastor) and we inevitably think of Hemingway. Dave, however, is not a radiantly beautiful Hollywood hero, but a Ken Loach hero. He has to watch his democratic militia being destroyed by Stalin's henchmen and we learn a lot about Stalin's realpolitik. It should be noted that this is only ever from Dave's perspective, so we don't have to deal with the whole war. The story is told exclusively in flashbacks, so that we perceive the learning process of Dave as well as his granddaughter Kim. Dave's painful lessons never made him a cynic. Until his death, he believes in the basic decency of working people. He believes in their right to control their own destiny. Both individually and collectively. So it is Kim, in a moving scene, who throws the Spanish soil on Dave's grave and raises the red bandana in salute. That is Land And Freedom!