The Wind That Shakes the Barley tells of war

A film wins the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the Palme d'Or (or Golden Palm), for the greatest display of what the jurors call "meaning." Now, what that term exactly means is up to much interpretation, owing to the obvious discrepancies in one's own judgment of aesthetic value.

Yet, as the jury is typically made up of internationally prestigious, still-working filmmakers, I will submit that this award should bear more weight than almost any other.

Last year's winner, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, is definitely one of the more lackluster victors on the list of previous winners, which consists of films made by the Coen brothers, Steven Soderbergh, David Lynch and Akira Kurosawa, among others.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley takes place in Ireland in the 1920s, as Ireland is violently trying to gain sovereignty from Great Britain.

The violence that ensues pits the scrubby Irish Republicans against the seemingly unconscionably brutal British Army.

The plot revolves around two brothers, Damien (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Padraic Delaney), as they quickly get roped into the revolution after British soldiers raid their home and murder one of their friends. Damien, who is due to leave for medical school, joins his brother in the IRA instead, and their small group of friends coalesces to fight a dirty war against the British.

In the short future, owing to the IRA's constant raids on British troops and stockpiles, the British government agrees to grant the Irish "semi-independence," with local courts and local police under Irish control but the entire region still under the British government.

This event naturally divides the Irish between those who support the new semi-autonomy they've gained and those who don't think the treaty has gone far enough to secure the rights of the Irish.

And in the film's major conflict, this treaty also splits the two brothers, each choosing, both with good reason, a different side of allegiance. Violence ensues between the two factions with Irish killing other Irish.

The reason that the plot gets so involved is that it ultimately takes over the film completely. The beautiful Irish backdrop ironically serves as a solemn war ground for a very solemn film. It's often plated with a dim natural light that bends the focus more towards the characters than the full landscape.

The film seems to be shot almost entirely in natural light, and, unlike a film such as The New World where the natural light is used to create awe and transcendence, The Wind That Shakes the Barley somehow uses it to create a more dark and earthy tone.

The film is stuck in plot and character development, which means that the camera eye and cinematic awareness go out the window. What results plays more like a well-crafted historical interpretation with higher production values.

The essence of "meaning" in film certainly bares different connotations for many people, and this past year, the Cannes jurors chose a safe and adequate film to showcase a rather recent historical event that holds meaning in an extremely temporal sense.

Is this great cinema? Absolutely not. There's no self-awareness here, no sense of cinematic context or reference to its affect on our very thought and philosophy. Great films do that. Their cinema lies in an infinite timeline, crafting a way of seeping into our vast thought processes and changing the way we perceive our own world.

Maybe that's a tall order from a small film about the birth of the IRA. Yet it never hurts to try.