"I expected "Barley" to be a lot like his Spanish Civil War film, "Land and Blood," with rain and mournful pipe music instead of sunshine and flamenco."

_Land and FREEDOM_

Just about every film mentioned was about the struggle of vaguely marxist freedom fighters fighting the imperialist white man. I'm sure if Penelope Cruz played transgendered Simon Bolivar she would have placed higher.

Its extremely common for American film critics to turn up their noses at Loach, supposedly because he is a "leftist"; though I think American cinema could have used a few leftists the last few years. No matter. This letter is a correction: Loach's film on the Spanish Civil War is called "Land and Freedom", Andrew. Do check your sources before handing in your copy.

While Loach is considered a "leftist" --and I'm not certain why quotation marks were used in the above article-- why is Del Toro not? After all, Pan's Labyrinth will be his second film to take place during the Spanish Civil War (Devil's Backbone being the first). Perhaps the incestuous press corps at Cannes have all been swallowing the same meme. Obviously it is only okay to be a socialist or "leftist" on-screen; heaven forbid any lessons be taken from art and applied to real life.

> I expected "Barley" to be a lot like his Spanish Civil War film,

> "Land and Blood," with rain and mournful pipe music instead of

> sunshine and flamenco

I don't understand this comment. Is the author implying that Loach imposed a British aesthetic on the Spanish Civil War? If so, he is incorrect, since sun and flamenco would have no place in the winter battlefields of the north of Spain--wrong aesthetic, wrong climate. Though it was in many ways a flawed film, Loach was able to see beyond the stereotypes that foreigners hold dear about this complex and diverse country and managed to capture the senseless chaos of the civil war. Reminds me of when the other film critic comment that the Spanish Galician music in The Sea Inside was Irish... No, it's not--nor has it ever been--all toros and flamenco here, any more than the US is all country music and monster trucks.

I'm not surprised that Loach won. Here in Spain, his film was lauded all along as one of the best of the festival. Almodóvar's film is also great--though also hardly just sun and flamenco, also dust, wind, blood, guts, demographic changes and some pretty strong social commentary--but I suspect that he still has his best work to come. I was struck by how different the coverage here was from what I read in the American press. I got the impression that the American critics were just passing on buzz more than seeing the films and producing actual criticism.

--from Madrid

I'm not surprised Loach's film won. Europe has been lately reexamining its colonialist past in some surprising ways, some good, some bad. The Belgians are finally facing up to the massive crimes Holocaut-scale crimes of their King Leopold in the Congo, and the French senate recently passed a law mandating that only the "positive" (!?) aspects of French colonialism can be taught in school. I can see the issue resonating in European viewers as they watch the story of the Irish struggle to overcome imperialism (though I wonder if in Loach's film this is done by installing a kick ass fiber optic network and opening up call centers for Microsoft? No matter). The US doesn't have the same long history of colonialism as do the Europeans (Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines are small change compared to the empires racked up by England, France and Spain), and we tend not think much about the subject. But it's a subject that is still very much alive for Europeans. Plus, the Irish are the only English-speaking people the French like.

That's what comes of writing on deadline in cheap French apartments without Internet connections. I filed that piece, no lie, by going and standing in the street with my laptop outside a hotel that offers wi-fi. But, no, it's not an excuse. I'm sure the catalogue offered Loach's career highlights and I could/should have avoided the holes in my faulty memory.

Yeah, there was a real trope of European colonialism and its consequences at Cannes this year. I do think you can read the festival jury as having subtly penalized Almodovar's film for not being "political" enough. But that may be overanalyzing: Who thinks Wong Kar-wai is especially interested in politics? Obviously we've got to take him on his word; if he says Loach made a great film, he clearly believes it.

In the 15 minutes of "Barley" that I've seen, there was nothing that seemed likely to change my life. But I want to resist that kind of cynicism. I've liked some of Loach's films a lot. No, I didn't think "Land and FREEDOM" was all that great, but that's really not relevant at all. "Barley" should get to the US around October, so we'll all get to find out for ourselves.

The reader who points out that Guillermo del Toro is also very political is clearly correct. I didn't mean to imply that he wasn't. In my interview with him (which should appear soon, either in print or audio form) he makes that clear. He's also a funny, humble and generally awesome guy, and the movie kicks ass. I suspect that one, easily the best thing I saw at Cannes, was subtly penalized for being fantastical. Maybe it wasn't deemed serious in the same way as Loach's or Dumont's or Bouchareb's films. Which is just silly, when you see the movie, and I hope you all will.

Strange review. O'Hehir deems "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Volver" the best movies. All well and good to declare these two the winners, if he had actually SEEN Loach's film. But noi, he says he gave it a pass in favor of less "dour" offerings. Is this what it's come to - critics panning films they haven't seen based on preconceived notions of what they might be like? Bizarre.