Автор: Sarah Keenlyside

Actor Cillian Murphy was so compelled to play the role of Damien in The Wind That Shakes the Barley that he accepted the job without even seeing a script. Not only was the story to be set in the actor's hometown of Cork, Ireland, it would be directed by controversial filmmaker Ken Loach, whose work Murphy had long admired.

"I'm a huge fan of his," says Murphy without hesitation. "I've seen all his movies."

Loach is credited as one of the most influential voices of the gritty social-realist film movement, which rose to popularity in the 1960s. He is notorious for making raw and unapologetic films (Riff-Raff, My Name Is Joe) about working-class strife in industrial and postindustrial Britain. His movies are often cast with unknown actors and largely improvised, adding to the realism. However, in The Wind That Shakes the Barley (which opens next Friday [March 16] in Vancouver), Loach turned to professional actors like Murphy to animate a fictional drama set against Ireland's struggle for independence.

The title is borrowed from an old Irish ballad about an earlier uprising in the country's history, when rebels carried barley oats in their pockets for food. Barley grass was planted at soldiers' gravesites to honour the dead and symbolize the ongoing resistance to British rule.

"Ken's films are always a blend of the human and the political," says Murphy. "I think whether or not you agree with his politics or like his movies, nobody can deny that he gets the most extraordinary performances from his actors. Working with him—the word I keep going back to is pure, it's completely pure. Not diluted by the nonsense of the movie industry as we know it. He's a true gentleman and a master at his craft."

The role of Damien is a far cry from the psycho killers Murphy became famous for in big-ticket Hollywood flicks like Red Eye and Batman Begins. Damien is a young, idealistic doctor who gives up his career path to join the Irish Republican Army alongside his brother Teddy to fight the brutal Black and Tan squads sent in by the British. In 1921, due to the rebels' relentless efforts, a contentious peace treaty is struck to end the violence. However, conflict arises over the treaty and civil war erupts, dividing the rebels and setting lifelong friends and family members against each other, including Teddy against Damien.

The story line is mostly fictional, but many of the characters were based on composites of historical figures and the context surrounding the drama is real. Murphy didn't have to change his accent or appearance to prepare for the role, but he did go to great lengths to get inside his character, to feel what it would be like to be an idealist forced by his sense of duty to fight for his country. "It was a very radicalized time in Europe—there was a lot of change, a lot of revolution in the air," he says. "We sang a lot of the songs those guys would have been singing and read a lot of their books. People who were in flying columns [independent corps of troops, usually associated with guerrilla warfare] had written their memoirs and accounts of being in that, so I read some of those. I found the personal stuff more helpful than the academic stuff."

The preparation paid off. The film was awarded the Palme d'Or for best picture at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, and Murphy's performance has been widely praised by critics.

But what was perhaps more rewarding for the actor was that he learned about his own country. "I discovered a lot in my preparation and research for the part through reading and talking to historians—it would be terrible if I didn't. It's obviously on the curriculum in history lessons in school, but they don't go into any great detail. A lot is glossed over, particularly the more complex aspects of it."