Ken Loach doesn't get Lost, but he should
Because one of his books made an appearance in an episode of the hugely popular TV series Lost, Flann O'Brien's ingenious novel "At Swim-Two-Birds" is enjoying a burst of fame, 60 years after it was first published. If you are unfamiliar with the book, here's the Rainy Day synopsis: In O'Brien's eyes, Irish history and literature are subjects fit only for farce.
Now, along comes the dour British director Ken Loach, who wants to make a film about Iraq, the liberation of which he opposed, by the way. So, what does Ken do? He makes a film about the heroic IRA in the early part of the 20th century. Specifically about its actions during what is known as the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. On the face of it, this is a puzzling move as Ireland has neither the deserts nor the fractious Muslim factions of Iraq, but these are but mere trifles to the film artist.
And Ken is an artist, as his peers confirmed last Sunday when they awarded him the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Regular Rainy Day readers are aware, of course, that the portly Michael Moore won the award last year with Fahrenheit 9/11, which is not about a future in which firemen burn books. Given the way the Palme d'Or is going, it won't be long before it will be as coveted as this legendary prize once was.
So, does Ireland need another Brit anguished about the Empire's misdeeds projecting his agony onto a country that is attempting to leave its bloody past behind? The answer here is a resounding NO! And wouldn't it better for all, anyway, if Ken Loach had made a film about Irish wildlife other than the IRA? I'd pay to see a movie about the marvellous, mysterious Celtic tiger, a beast that has never been brought to the screen. Who needs remakes of King Kong? And the beauty of it would be that Ken could assuage his guilt about all the wrongs that Britain has wreaked on its neighbour while continuing to film in Ireland. And when you consider that Ken's best-know film, Kes, is about a kestrel, he's clearly the man for the tiger project.
After all this praise, a small gripe. Until Cannes last Sunday your correspondent enjoyed many a happy moment listening to that paragon of Uilleann pipers and the patron saint of this blog, Seamus Ennis, playing the beautiful reel, The Wind That Shakes The Barley. In one of those moves so typical of imperialists the world over, Ken Loach has now appropriated the title and thereby ruined for ever our simple pleasure. Those Brits! Beneath the surface lurks the Black 'n Tan.
