fist salute, honoring his beliefs. Cast Ian Hart – David Carr Rosana Pastor – Blanca Frédéric Pierrot – Bernard Goujon Tom Gilroy – Lawrence Icíar Bollaín – Maite Marc Martínez – Juan Vidal Andrés Aladren – Militia member Sergi Calleja – Militia member Raffaele Cantatore – Militia member Pascal Demolon – Militia member Paul Laverty – Militia member Suzanne Maddock – Kim (David's granddaughter) Themes According to Ken Loach, the most important scene of the film is the debate in an assembly of a village successfully liberated by the militia. People from the actual village where the film was shot play peasant parts in the film and express their thoughts freely (despite language difficulties), and a debate ensues about whether or not to collectivize the village land and that of the recently shot priest. An American with the POUM militia argues that the war effort must come first, suggesting that collectivization and other revolutionary actions might hamper that effort. He mentions that if such actions and the slogans accompanying them continue, they will not gain the support of powerful capitalist regimes such as the United States and Britain ("You're scaring them", he says). The necessity of a contemporaneous war and revolution is expressed by a German militiaman, who says that 'in Germany revolution was postponed and now Hitler is in power'. In the end the villagers vote for collectivization, thereby taking steps on a far-left path. In the anarchist and socialist controlled areas this kind of expropriation of land was common, as the civil war was accompanied by a social revolution. As in the above scene, various languages: Spanish, English and Catalan are spoken throughout the film, and subtitles are used selectively. Carr arrives in Spain without knowing any Spanish, but gradually picks it up – and luckily for him English is the lingua franca in his militia. The social revolution was opposed by both the Soviet-supported communists and the democratic republicans and as the war progressed, the government and the communists were able to leverage their access to Soviet arms to restore government control over the war effort, both through diplomacy and force. An historical event, the bloody fight between Republicans and Anarchists for controlling the Telefónica building in Barcelona, has been chosen by Loach as an emblem of this internal conflict (See Barcelona May Days). Carr's disenchantment starts from this meaningless fight, which he fails to understand because