Jimmy’s Hall is in may
ways a follow-up to The Wind That Shakes The Barley, expanding on that
film’s theme about how Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which ended the War of
Independence and brought about the partition of Ireland, was a betrayal of the
socialist ideals of the IRA. This version of Irish history remains contentious
amongst historians, but The Wind That Shakes The Barley was nonetheless
a powerful film about the clash of pragmatism and idealism in war (amongst
other things), just like the earlier Land And Freedom. Jimmy’s Hall then
is set ten years later – in 1932 – and examines the independent Ireland’s
continued betrayal of the left, though at a smaller level.
James Gralton (Barry Ward)
returns to Leitrim, Ireland after ten years in America, having fled from the
security forces for agitation. Now back, he wants to have a quiet life and help
his mother Alice (Aileen Henry) around the house. However, it isn’t long before
the local kids – lead by Marie (Aisling Franciosi) – bored by the dances approved
by the Church, beg James to reopen his fabled dance hall. Ten years ago, James
taught dancing, music and politics before he was forced to flee. Finally
agreeing to reopen the hall, James finds himself under attack from his
political enemies all over again, including Father Sheridan (Jim Norton) and a
local landowner O’Keefe (Brían F. O’Byrne).
Ken Loach’s best films can engage
with a political debate in a way that humanises that debate, bringing it down
to real terms. Riff Raff very clearly and concisely shows the problems
of builders being forced to work on unsafe building sites while also being very
funny and moving. Raining Stones shows the lives of long-term unemployed
people, their attempts to find pride in their lives, in a way that thoroughly
counters the government’s preferred description of them as lazy spongers. The
Navigators almost prophetically told us why rail privatisation would be a
bad thing. Meanwhile, Loach’s historical films often attempt to represent
alternative histories. Jimmy’s Hall then is a film that shows how a
conservative priest-ridden Ireland (as Joyce called it) betrayed the people by
oppression and the refusal to allow dissident voices in times of turmoil. That
James Gralton was ultimately deported from his homeland never to return is
shocking, but it is also a little known part of Irish history. The connection
between a post-Depression Ireland and a post-Tiger, recession Ireland is easy
to make, but Jimmy’s Hall is ultimately a tribute to those who speak out
against conventional wisdom and who refuse to be silenced.
The film, then, is one of
oppression and is such it is a fairly typical exercise, keeping close to the
expected story beats. It is not entirely successful in avoiding its own clichés
– we all know, for example, that the chirpiest member of the dance hall will be
the one to suffer the most brutal consequences. The other problem with the film
is in it’s first half, which jumps back and forward through time, clearly
trying to deliver as much information as possible before the action can
properly begin, but getting hopelessly bogged down in quick flashback scenes
which add little beyond exposition. It gives the film a sluggish and slightly
confused feel, which the rest of the film never quite escapes. Ultimately, the film
only rarely seems to get right to the heart of the matter – there are a few
debate scenes that recall the best scenes from Land And Freedom and The
Wind That Shakes The Barley, though here they just don’t work quite so
well.
Oddly, Loach avoids addressing
Gralton’s socialism all that much. We know that he teaches these ideas because
we have been told that he does, but there are very few scenes in which his
ideas are portrayed, where they are brought to life. Surely the film would be
doing more justice to his ideas if it represented them realistically and
empathically for a modern-day audience. Loach and his regular writer Paul
Laverty seem to be wary of being criticised as dogmatic, but surely they would
only be doing justice to the ideas. Indeed, it is not hard to see why the
misleading trailer (which suggests that what Jimmy’s Hall is primarily about,
and what the priests oppose most, is simply the dancing – making it look like
an Irish Dirty Dancing) was made the way it was, since there’s so little
of the politics.
There is something stilted and badly thought out about
Jimmy’s Hall, possibly something to do with the fact that most of the
script is speculation. Even the performances, rare for Loach, suffer, with Ward
having little to fully get his teeth into and others, like Aileen Henry, left
looking lost. The romance between James and Oonagh (Simone Kirby), an invented
character, is shockingly awkward and by-the-numbers for Ken Loach – the man who
made My Name is Joe. The best scenes are few and far between and are
almost always too short and fail to dig far enough beneath the surface. The
film lacks a forward momentum until its final moments, a surprise when one
remembers not only the pace and energy of the recent The Angels’ Share and
Laverty-scripted Icíar Bollaín-directed Even The Rain but also the
passion and the force of those films’ political argument. Jimmy’s Hall is
moving, especially towards the end, and it does make you angry – just as every
Ken Loach film should – but, sadly, it just doesn’t seem moving or angry
enough.
See also:
The Spirit of '45
See also:
The Spirit of '45
