Tag: Ken Loach

Urban Jungle

Posted on by victorfraga

In 1991, Nuneaton-born director Ken Loach released Riff-Raff, an urgently directed film that peered at building sites with as much raw honesty as he could muster, and now he returns to the mechanical landscape with Urban Jungle, a film where he reunites with Brian Cox of Hidden Agenda (1990). Cox plays Garry Henderson, a builder who spends his time counting down the hours until retirement, when he spots the loveliest woman he has ever seen in his life. It’s Maryam (Ebla Mari), a Palestinian woman who suggests that they should elope together, to East Jerusalem. This wild possibility tempts him except for the fact that his union buddies will shun him, not forgetting his wife Margaret (Ana de Armas, making her debut in a Ken Loach feature), who has tended to him for 10 years.

Arguably Loach’s most unabashedly romantic feature, the film is also noteworthy for a 10-minute gun fight, which was done in one impressive take. Cox’s Henderson spends much of the shootout covered in sweat, his eyes turning to the love for both the socialist party – which is led by Marina Vazquez, who is played rather wonderfully by Penelope Cruz – and the mistress he longs to run to. This particular silhouette has a political undertone, representing the struggle between the proletariats (the builders) and the capitalists (the architects) through the lexicon of violence.

But it’s not all bullet-fire and pecs: Urban Jungle features one of the most tender romantic scenes Loach has yet filmed, positioning the camera just above Garry and Maryam mid-coitus. They talk about philosophy, discussing the ramifications of the Marxists should they take a more liberal stance towards the conflict in the Middle East. Garry pictures himself in uniform, the sounds of rockets ricocheting across the living room, and he recognises his mediocrity both as a hero and, more fatally, as a lover. Cox hasn’t been this committed in years, and Cruz – the maniacal Vazquez – acquits herself nicely as a sparring partner. Mari has some of the film’s more memorable lines (“Socialism has been here as long as the Bible, but they never put a price tag on it” is a particular hoot). Armas does less well as the clawing Margaret, a Liverpudlian who spends half her time speaking in a Cuban accent (perhaps they’re being knowing, but “Go back to your puta inamorata” is a curious choice of zinger for Armas to utter).

Much of it is statically filmed, but the film opens a variety of rapid cuts that makes Liverpool come alive, as if to disprove the notion that Liverpool is a city based on industry alone. The film chugs along with a rock heavy energy, which might explain why Loach films a band performing a raucous version of Bella Ciao in a café populated by university students. At 140 minutes, the feature will test even the most hardened of Loach disciples, but there’s no denying the chemistry between Cox and Mari onscreen, particularly during the montage in Bani Suheila; a dream sequence that rivals Terry Gilliam at his most daring.
When Garry returns to the building site midway through the film, he does so with a purpose he had never thought possible. In a line thought to be Cox’s own invention, Garry tells Maryam “We really are screwed, so why don’t we just fuck?”

We’ve rarely seen Cox be so animal in cinema, but he has a magnetic twinkle in the eye, making the love scenes more believable. But Cruz is the real scene-stealer as the sloganeering, jeering leader of the workers, all sparkle eyes and gestures. Loach elicits a smooth performance from Cox, and a career-best from Cruz. This production was secretly filmed over the course of just two weeks in Liverpool.

Urban Jungle is in the best cinemas across the UK on Friday, April 5th.

Ken Loach’s lucid indictment on free market capitalism

Posted on by victorfraga

Ken Loach remains the most prominent and virtually unchallenged voice of the working class in British cinema. His latest movie Sorry We Missed You is an extremely powerful statement about eroding working conditions in modern-day Britain. Our editor Victor Fraga believes that it is even more excruciatingly painful to watch (and therefore even more effective) than its companion piece from three years ago I, Daniel Blake, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes. That’s because audiences are forced to walk in the shoes of the oppressed working man.

In Sorry We Missed You, Ricky (Kris Hitchen) is a building worker with an impeccable CV, living with his family somewhere in suburban Newcastle. He persuades his wife Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) to sell off her car so that he can buy a van and move into the delivery industry. A franchise owner promises Ricky that he’ll be independent and “own his own business”, and earn up to £1,200 a week. The reality couldn’t be more different. Ricky ends up working up to 14 hours a day six days a week. His draconian delivery targets turn him into a delivery robot. Ricky has been conned. His “independence” is but an illusion. Click here in order to read the review of the movie.

Our editor sat down with Ken in order to understand the challenges that Ricky and the working class in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world face, and what we can do in order to overcome their apparently insurmountable barriers. They also discussed modern-day slavery, Jeremy Corbyn, Brexit, free movement and how British movies have helped the far-right to disseminate prejudices and fake patriotism!

Sorry We Missed You is in cinemas on Friday, November 1st!

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Victor Fraga – Four million working people are currently living in poverty in the UK. That’s four million Rickies and Abbies? How have we failed so many people?

Ken Loach – That’s actually 14 million. One-four [in reality, this is the total number of people living in poverty, not just workers living in poverty]. Four million of those are children. And 1.5 million are in dire poverty. That means that they don’t have the means to the essentials of life.

It’s a process that began with Margaret Thatcher. She destroyed communities in the old working-class areas, with mines and factories being closed. Those were the old days of the secure job, with the eight-hour day and the 40-hour week, a wage on which you could bring up a family and have somewhere to live, have a holiday without losing money. Those working conditions were gradually eroded under the pressures of harsh competition from big companies, because they have to compete on both quality and price, so those who get the trade will be cheaper. They have to cut their labour costs. And they do that by finding new ways to employ people. They don’t pay holiday pay, they don’t pay sick pay. They have no responsibility for the worker beyond their day’s work. They can hire and fire them very easily. So they work through agencies, which also have no responsibility for the worker. They are so called self-employed. The bogus self-employment.

The work in this case, he [Ricky from Sorry We Missed You] is simply providing a service. He’s just a worker providing a service. Therefore they don’t need to obey trade unions rules, they don’t need to pay the minimum wage. It’s just a contract to supply a service. That of course isn’t true, because the driver is entirely contracted to this one company, and they are to all effects and purposes one worker. But this new form of words for the same job means the employer has no responsibility.

VF – Who changed the words?

KL – Employers found clever new strategies. They are market-orientated people who find their way around the rules. The minimum wage doesn’t apply to someone who’s providing a service. So a driver might work 12 hours a day or more and still struggle to make a decent living. The eight-hour day, the minimum wage and the guaranteed working week have been swept away by the gig economy.

It’s a logic. If you are committed to the free market, that’s based on competition. Firms compete on price, therefore they must continue that exploitation, otherwise they are going to lose trade.

VF – We’re seeing far-right and ultra neo-liberal governments destroy working rights around the world. I’m from Brazil, where the phenomenon is more pronounced yet not entirely dissimilar to the UK. Is the erosion of working rights the natural and inevitable consequence of capitalism, or is this just a perverse subversion of capitalism?

KL – I think it’s an inevitable consequence of free market capitalism. Because, as I say, it’s based on competition and therefore they will try to cut their labour costs and increase exploitation. That’s the only way they can do it. And now they use technology in order to do it. So Ricky as a driver, he doesn’t have someone over him telling him he has to work harder. He’s got a machine in the car which knows where he is every two minutes. It beeps if he’s out of the car for more than two minutes. It allows him no time to go to the lavatory. No time for a break. He’s driven by a piece of electronic equipment. He’s forced to exploit himself. And when the worker has to exploit himself, that’s the ideal situation for the employer.

VF – I would argue that we saw improvements in working conditions in the 20th century. And we’re now going back to Victorian times, or even the industrial revolution. Do you agree?

KL – Absolutely. I think that there was a real change in consciousness after WW2, the public good was something that we all subscribed to. Trade unions grew stronger, and therefore workers’ rights grew stronger. The trade unions had the negotiating strength to get the eight-hour day, to get a decent wage. Collective bargaining is the strength of the working class. And that’s what Thatcher aimed to destroy. And to a large extent she succeeded. Partly because the labour movement itself, and the Labour Party, didn’t put up a good enough fight.

What’s much remarkable about this time right now is that with Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, it’s the first time in 100-year history that the Labour Party has a leader of the left. And that leadership will stand for the interests of the working class. Blair stood with business. Corbyn will stand with workers, and that’s why he’s so attacked.

VF – The working conditions in Sorry We Missed You are comparable to slavery. The British Empire was built upon slavery. Have we found a surrogate for old-fashioned colonialism whereby we oppress our very own workforce?

KL – I wouldn’t use the work slavery. It’s too glib. Colonialism has been replaced by the working class of countries were the wages are even lower than they are here. Getting clothes from Bangladesh is a form of colonialism, because we are using their very exploited working class for goods to sell here. When capitalism goes global, the trade goes to those on starvation wages. It’s a race to the bottom. And we know that the working conditions in some Eastern countries are atrocious.

VF – Abbie knows unfettered solidarity and devotion to her job. But she pays a price for that. Has solidarity become unfeasible or even illegal?

KL – They have tried to nullify it, and that’s a challenge for the left. Solidarity needs political intervention. And obviously we need strong trade unions. But in order to get strong trade unions we need a party in power that will restore their powers, which Thatcher took away. A party that will make zero-hour contracts illegal. There has to be some commitment to the working week. Otherwise the minimum wage is meaningless. There also has to be an end to bogus self-employment. And there’s yet another change that we must deliver. Not long ago our post office was nationalised. And was always a public service. We owned it. Then the Tories privatised it, and now we need to bring it back into public ownership, so that parcels are delivered by the postman. That cuts out this need to rip-off delivery companies.

The system pits people against each other. The fastest driver gets the best route, which means they will earn more money. They consciously put one driver against another. That’s what Paul Laverty’s [Loach’s screenwriter for nearly three decades] found in his research. And that’s another reason why this bogus self-employment should end.

VF – Will Ricky be better off in post-Brexit Britain? Will he enjoy more or will he enjoy less labour protections?

KL – This bogus self-employment is happening while we are in the European Union, and it will get worse if Boris Johnson and the Tories are in power when we leave. Brexit is a distraction. Because the big issues – poverty, exploitation and failing public services – are being neglected. For the left, it’s a tactical question.

VF – Let’s say Jeremy Corbyn gets to power. Do you think Ricky will be better off -in a post-Brexit Jeremy Corbyn government?

KL – That depends on the deal. They haven’t negotiated the deal yet. I would hope that a Labour government under Corbyn would negotiate a deal whereby we have control over our fisheries, so that we can protect the fish stock, and we have control over agriculture, so we can control the ecological side. And we would improve on workers’ rights by ending zero-hour contracts and bogus self-employment. We would bring public services entirely back into public ownership. Not outsourced. That might be against EU policies of competitive industry, their rules of what the state can do in terms of intervention. They think that’s against competition.

VF – But aren’t some public services nationalised in the largest EU countries, such as the trains in France and Germany?

KL – Yes, they are, but that’s a tension within the European Union. The European Union’s founding document is based on the free market. So those examples are an anomaly in the practice and in the rules. If you look at the rules, they oppose state intervention if it interferes with competition. I would argue that a Labour government needs to intervene in competition in order to provide a better service and protect workers’ rights. It depends on the deal that Corbyn gets, if he gets elected. If the deal is a good deal Ricky would be better off outside the EU. If the Corbyn deal is not a good deal, he’d be better off inside the EU. It’s a judgement you can only make once you see the deal Labour has negotiated.

VF – What about free movement and diversity? If we close our borders and no EU people can come in, would that have a positive impact on Ricky’s life?

KL – In principle, you have to be in favour of free movement. But I think that in order for free movement to be really free – not a means of an employer getting cheap labour – the economies have to be roughly equal. Because if the wages are lower in one group of countries, people will migrate to where the wages are higher. And that’s what happened. And that can produce problems of racism, because the local people feel undermined in their income. In order to avoid that, there should be a conscious move to equalise the economies. People can travel, freely, but they can have a good living in their own country. Free movement has to go alongside equalising the economies.

VF – But that’s going to take a long time. Wages in Romania won’t be on the same level as Britain in 10 or 20 years. Does that mean we should close our gates for now?

KL – No, I think that we need to work with poorer countries so that their young talent don’t go abroad to work in coffee shops because the wages are higher. But equally, that’s got to be done with planning and agreement, not with one country putting up barriers.

VF – Fake patriotism and nostalgia of imperialism are more rabid than ever, with the ultra-nationalistic Brexit Party coming first in the latest EU elections. How can cinema help to fend off this dangerous and reactionary threat?

KL – Yes, I agree with you that there’s a lot of fake patriotism, xenophobia, chauvinism. I think that cinema and the left in general should communicate that people are of equal value, whatever their origin, religion, the language they speak. Everyone is our neighbour. Our working class people have more in common with the working class of other European countries than with our ruling class. We’ve taken Sorry We Missed You to Spain, France, Germany and Ireland so far, and everywhere it’s the same story. When you show it to an audience in France you realise that delivery drivers here have exactly the same situation as delivery drivers in the rest of Europe, and they have nothing in common with Boris Johnson’s ruling class.

VF – I think that a lot of mainstream cinema has helped to stir fake patriotism and anti-European resentment, and some films are Brexit’s BFF, such as Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, 2017) and Darkest Hour (Joe Wright, 2018). They are a manna from heaven for people like Farage. Do you share my view?

KL – Very much so. We had so many war films after the War where all the Germans were bad, except there was one nice German. That’s where the phrase “the good German” passed into common usage. The message of these films was: “Germans are bad”. The German language became associated with Nazis, even though the British governments were happy to support the fascists in Spain under Franco. Churchill was a rabid imperialist. We supported dictators and the far-right around the world. Same with the States. So came the phrase: “he might be a bastard, but he’s our bastard”. So let’s not take any lessons from the far-right and their patriotism, because the interests of the working people are the same anywhere in the world.

VF – Does mainstream cinema tend to have a subliminal far-right message?

KL – Yes, absolutely. The classic message of the American cinema is: “one man with a gun will sort your problems”. It’s not about solidarity.

VF – What about British cinema?

KL – I don’t know much about British cinema, to be honest. It may seem strange.

VF – It does seem very strange!!!

KL – That’s true. The British war films that I grew up with were always about the “good Brit” versus the “bad German”. Or the coward Italian. They were all stereotypes.

VF – You made a documentary entitled In Conversation with Jeremy Corbyn (2016), yet there doesn’t seem to be much positive coverage of the Labour leader elsewhere. Do you believe that the British media – even the left-leaning papers such as The Guardian – are biased against Jeremy Corbyn, is there a smear campaign, and has that impacted how your documentary was received?

KL – It was a just short film, it never really had a major presence, so I wouldn’t say I encountered resistance.

I spoke to Jeremy very little about this. So this is just my opinion. The right wing and the centre press – the Guardian included (which I don’t see it as a left wing newspaper) the BBC, ITV and so on – certainly have to varying degrees opposed Corbyn. The only paper that supports him is The Morning Star, but the others won’t even acknowledge its existence. There is a smear campaign against him, there is a campaign to undermine and to ridicule him. And key to that are the Labour MPs, the majority of which came to power when Blair was the leader, so they are right wing Labour MPs and their task is to undermine Corbyn. They are the biggest danger we face.

The picture at the top and at the bottom and of this article are of Ken Loach and Victor Fraga on the the day this interview was conducted. The other images are stills from Ken Loach’s latest film Sorry We Missed You.

Sorry We Missed You

Posted on by victorfraga

Ricky (Kris Hitchen) is a building worker with an impeccable CV, living with his family somewhere in suburban Newcastle. He persuades his wife Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) to sell off her car in order to raise £1,000 so that he can buy a van and move into the delivery industry. A franchise owner promises Ricky that he’ll be independent and “own his own business”, and earn up to £1,200 a week.

The reality couldn’t be more different. Ricky ends up working up to 14 hours a day six days a week. He literally has no time to pee, and instead urinates in a bottle inside him own vehicle (I would hazard a guess that Amazon’s infamous practices inspired scriptwriter Paul Laverty). His draconian delivery targets and inflexible ETAs (estimated time of arrival) turn him into a delivery robot. A small handheld delivery device containing delivery instructions virtually controls his life. Ricky has been conned. His “independence” is but an illusion. He might own his car, his company and his insurance, yet he’s entirely at the mercy of his franchiser.

Abbie is a carer for the elderly and disabled, and having sold off her car she now has to travel by bus in order to see her clients. She’s the epitome of selflessness. She is prepared to visit a client on a Saturday night if necessary, despite not being paid extra hours and travel time. She finds strength in helping these extremely vulnerable people. She tells one of her clients, an old lady unable to control her bladder, clean up and look after herself: “I get from you as much as you get from me”. She seems honest. This is a very short yet deeply touching conversation. The entire movie is dotted with small yet very powerful gestures of humanity and altruism.

Despite the illusion of independence, both Ricky and Abbie work on zero-hour contracts. They are left with virtually no time for their two children, Seb and Lisa Jane. Seb turns violent and shoplifts. He does not wish to go to university because he’s afraid that he’ll end up with a huge pile of debts (he mentions a depressed friend who owes £57,000 in university fees). Lisa Jane internalises her anxiety, until it comes out in a shocking manner.

The pain and the helplessness of the entire family are very palpable. How long will it be before either Ricky or Abbie breaks down and snaps out of sanity? The entire film narrative is built upon such tension, similarly to Loach’s previous feature I, Daniel Blake (2016), which won the Palme d’Or just three years ago. Will Ricky and Abbie have their cathartic moment, the equivalent to Daniel Blake’s outrageous graffiti gesture, or will they continue to internalise their suffering until their financial condition improves?

In reality, Ricky and Abbie are trapped in the wrong end of capitalism. They work in conditions analogue to slavery. There is no way out, no matter how hard they work. They must carry on working without challenging the system and the rules, otherwise they could end up on the streets. They are not the only ones. Around four million people in the UK are now working while living in poverty thanks to slow wage growth and cuts to in-work benefits. Sorry We Missed You is not a melodramatic take on reality. Sorry We Missed You is reality.

Ken Loach and Paul Laverty reveal that Britain has consistently failed the working class through a succession of events. It all started with the nationalisation of Northern Rock in 2008 and the subsequent mortgage crisis, which left Ricky and Abbie unable to get into the much coveted property ladder. Then came the widespread dissemination of zero-hour contracts (such working arrangement were initially intended for casual workers), leaving people destitute of labour rights and entirely at the mercy of greedy bosses. Then came university fees, leaving many young people hopeless.

The film also reveals that capitalism pits people against each other. Ricky gets a more profitable driving rota because another worker facing personal problems has failed to meet his targets. The dismissed driver becomes very angry at Ricky. Soon Ricky too fails to meet his targets, and his boss quickly threatens to dismiss him. The ruthless corporate environment in prepared to replace drivers at the blink of an eye. People are treated like disposable robots programmed to compete against each other.

The film title has a double significance. Firstly, it refers to the message on the paper card left in the mailbox of people who are not at home at the time of the delivery. Secondly, it refers to people like Ricky and Abbie, and every single person who has been marginalised and failed by the establishment. Sorry Britain failed you! You have to fend for yourselves. Tough.

Sorry We Missed You premiered at the 72 Cannes International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It moved me profoundly. I feel like giving the next Amazon delivery guy a big hug. It shows at the Cambridge Film Festival, which takes place between October 17th and 24th, and it’s out in cinemas on Friday, November 1st. Out on VoD on Monday, March 9th.

Sorry We Missed You is in our list of Top 10 dirtiest films of 2019.

Ken Loach answers our dirty questions

Posted on by victorfraga

This 80-year-old English director from the small town of Nuneaton is the most recognisable face of British working-class realism, with a career spanning more than five decades, and more than 60 films for both cinema and television. He also counts two Palme d’Or awards under his belt: The Wind that Shakes the Barley in 2006 and I, Daniel Blake this year, plus a number of accolades from every corner of Europe and the world.

I, Daniel Blake saw its theatrical release just 11 days ago, and it has since stirred a lot of controversy. The rivetting drama tells the story of the eponymous 59-old widower and carpenter living in Newcastle (played by Dave Johns). Daniel has had a heart attack and his GP and physiotherapist will not allow him to go back to work. Tragically, he gets caught up in the red tape of the callous benefit system. The outcome isn’t rosy, with the stress of the procedure triggering a fatal heart.

Victor Fraga, editor at DMovies, met up with Ken at the offices of his film production company Sixteen Films for an exclusive interview . We asked him dirty questions about his though-provoking feature, his left-wing political allegiances, Cannes, Brexit, Truffaut, George Lloyd, Cathy and Daniel. The well-mannered cricket-lover has views that are both accurate and sobering. So read on!

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DMovies – Two thousand and three hundred people in the UK died between December 2011 and February 2014 after they were deemed fit to work, according to figures published by the DWP in August 2015. That’s 2,300 Daniel Blakes. Where did we get it so wrong?

Ken Loach – Well, I don’t think we got it wrong. This is a deliberate policy of government to drive people out of the benefit system. They know what they are doing; they know that they are humiliating and destroying people by how they operate, by forcing sick people to go through an assessment in order to get the means to survive. And in that situation of course people will die. That’s unfortunate collateral damage for the government.

DM – Our reader Richard Banker said in a Facebook comment of our review of I, Daniel Blake: “The whole system was brought in by New Labour in 2008 with the Employment Support Regulations 2008 and awarding Atos Origin the contract. It has taken the Labour Party till now with the advent of Jeremy Corbyn to finally repudiate the system. I will be watching it”. Do you agree with Richard?

KL – I absolutely agree. The Labour Party under Blair and Brown was, in some ways, hardly distinguishable from the Tories, and they did bring this system in. The Party now under Jeremy Corbyn is a different Party, politically. The Shadow Minister of Housing said that Labour would end the assessments and rely instead on doctors and consultants, the real medical experts to provide the answers, and they would also end the punitive sanctions regime. These sanctions drive people’s lives into chaos. There’s nothing in their fridge, nothing in their bank account. They have nothing. They become hungry, and they can’t get warm. The government uses hunger as a weapon to discipline people.

Your reader is dead right. That was Labour indeed. Thank God that Labour Party no longer exists, except for the few idiot backbenchers who attack Corbyn all the time. The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell is very different.

DM – The Welfare State is now over 100 years old. Do you think the former Chancellor of Exchequer and Prime Minister David Lloyd George would be proud of what has been achieved in a century?

KL – I wouldn’t say the Welfare State began with Lloyd George. I would say it began with the Clement Attlee government of 1945. There has been some things put in place by Lloyd George, but the Welfare State as we know began with the establishment of free healthcare, support for the most vulnerable. This was brought in at a time of full employment, but sadly successive governments have allowed this system to be eroded – and that’s another significant element. The Welfare State also exists in housing, that’s another aspect that came in my Nye Bevan. This also includes social care: organisations in community supporting old and disabled people. The whole idea of being looked after from the cradle to the grave, that came in with Attlee, and that’s what the Tories have been dismantling for years.

DM – And do you that Attlee and Bevan would be proud of what has been achieved?

KL – I think that Clement Attlee would have been dismayed, and Nye Bevan would have been incandescent with rage. I think Nye Bevan would be alongside Corbyn. Attlee was more defined by his time, while Bevan had underlined social principles in his heart, which would have aligned him with Corbyn.

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Ken Loach and Victor Fraga at the offices of Sixteen Films. If Cathy was alive, she’d be in a room half this size.

DM – It’s 50 years since you made Cathy Come Home. So let’s move the years back. If Daniel Blake was born 50 years earlier and was unable to work, at the time of Cathy, do you think that he would have survived?

KL – I think that’s a really good question. I think Daniel certainly would have survived because he would have received his sickness pay. He would have not been humiliated and tested time after time. There would have been no cruel regime to get him out of the office as quickly as possible. Not only would he have survived, but the health service would have been better set up to look after him. There weren’t cutbacks in beds, in nursing care. Everything was owned and controlled by us all. It was a proper National Health Service. Daniel wouldn’t have been forced into another heart attack back then.

DM – Let’s turn things around. Had Cathy been born 50 years later, would she be homeless right now?

KL – She probably would be homeless if she lived in London because the housing crisis is much worse now than it was 50 years ago. The arrangements for homeless people are different now. She would probably be in a hostel in room half the size of this room [an average double size room, pictured above] with three kids, including her baby, feeding, eating, sleeping and doing school work, all in one place. So maybe she wouldn’t be homeless, but that’s where she would be.

DM – The French filmmaker Truffaut once famously said that the words “British” and “cinema” were an oxymoron. Yet, it was a French Festival, Cannes, that gave you possibly the most important accolade of your career, and twice: the Palme d’Or. On the other hand, American awards such as the Oscars haven’t recognised your work as emphatically, despite the enormous cultural affinity between the US and the UK. Why do you think that is?

KL – I hope Truffaut was joking. I think the French take cinema more seriously. They don’t see it as a commodity, as a product to make money, like Americans do. They have a wider view of cinema. Of course I was delighted to receive this accolade from the French. Well, the jury isn’t exclusively French, it’s international, but the French audiences have been incredibly generous to us. They have always screened our films to a very wide public. They are very conscious of our depth.

It would be nice to meet with François Truffaut, share a glass and change his mind!

DM – You recently said that BBC period dramas sell fake nostalgia. Parallel to that, Jeremy Corbyn said that our children should be taught about suffering under the British Empire in school. Do you think that the British media and the education system convey a distorted sense of Britishness, neglectful of our shortcomings?

KL – It’s a fake patriotism. There’s always exceptions, but by and large the traditional Sunday night television period dramas are nostalgic, like a Christmas card. People walking through snow and not getting damp. That’s ok, as long as we know what it is, but you need the corrective of films and stories that tell the truth rather than a kitsch nostalgia.

Gordon Brown once said that we need to stop apologising about the British Empire, but I don’t recall there ever being an apology. The British Empire was founded on land conquests, enslaving people, transporting them to other countries, stealing people’s natural resources, exploitation, brutality, concentration camps. We do need to tell the truth about that. I’m not saying we should wallow in guilt. This is what happened and we need to know our history, that’s all. The fake patriotism of Britannia rules the waves is nonsense.

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Still from I, Daniel Blake (Dave Johns on the top right)

DM – Can you mention a few names in film or television of people who do a good job in portraying an authentic Britain?

KL – I prefer not to name people because I don’t want to miss anyone out, and also because my memory is rubbish. I think there’s a lot of hugely talented young people who could do it. There are also brilliant writers out there, and they need producers who can work with them, and of course we need the television channels to commission the right work. And not be cowered by management, or be micromanaged. No one should be chipping in and telling them what to do.

DM – Let’s talk about post-Brexit Britain. Do you think being British now means the same as before the referendum?

KL – The debate over Europe was complicated. On the left, a lot of people opposed the EU as an economic project because it’s a neo-liberal project favouring business. It doesn’t mean that they refuse to work with the EU corporation. They might want to stay or to leave for tactical reasons.

The position of the right is that they had a romantic idea of British sovereignty and English, of us as a separate nation. This is very strong in both English and British consciousness. Britannia Rules the Waves is part of this nostalgia.

A lot of people on both sides felt alienated and neglected, like no one spoke to them. So they voted against the establishment, against what Westminster was telling them. The Leave vote was a complicated mixture of all that.

This [conjecture] has raised up old memories of dislike of immigrants. It’s very disturbing. We need very strong political leadership from the left in order to change this, in the interest of ordinary people.

DM – Will you be dealing with the subject of immigration and xenophobia anytime soon?

KL – I don’t know yet. I’ll have to wait and see first what the future brings!

…

I, Daniel Blake

Posted on by victorfraga

More than 2,300 people in the UK died between December 2011 and February 2014 after they were deemed fit to work, according to figures published by the DWP in August 2015. The current government seems very insensitive to the urgent needs of many working-class people facing difficulties, and it’s only natural that the master of British realism made a film denouncing the incongruities of the benefit system. I, Daniel Blake won the Palm D’Or in Cannes earlier this year, and it could easily become the British film of the year.

Fifty-nine-year-old Daniel Blake (Dave Johns) is a widower and a carpenter living in Newcastle. He recently had a heart attack and his GP and physiotherapist will not allow him to go back to work. Despite the medical evidence, the government suspends his Employment and Support Allowance, based an assessment of very questionable credibility. A very unsympathetic healthcare professional without any medical qualifications asks Daniel ludicrous questions such as “are you able to walk 50 metres unaided?” and “are you able to put on a hat” before deciding that he should be in employment. Meanwhile, the young single mum Katie (Hayley Squires) also struggles to provide for her two small children. Daniel and Katie meet in a Job Centre and immediately strike an unlikely and yet very profound friendship.

The system that the two friends encounter is rigid, cold and calculating. The red tape is both incomprehensible and insurmountable. The agents (or coachs, as they are often called) at the Job Centre lack any type of humanity, and instead act like callous bureaucrats. There is no regard for the special requirements and limitations of claimants. Daniel is forced to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance online at the local library, despite the fact that he has never used a computer in his life. At one point, he’s told that his computer froze, and he promptly asks to desfrost it (!!!). The system is so broken and that it elicits a tragic laughter.

By the time someone at the Job Centre breaks the protocol and displays a scyntilla of compassion towards Daniel, it’s already too late. By then, he has already lost his self-respect (as he describes it himself) and resorted to a very Draconian measure in order to survive. Katie comes to his rescue and provides her unwavering support, but she too has already succumbed to despair and chosen a very difficult path in order to make ends meet.

I, Daniel Blake is a tearjerker, but not because it relies on forlumaic devices – such as melodramatic music, plot ruses and unexpected twists. It is not exploitative and it never evokes extravagant emotions. The film is so effective because it’s is extremely accurate in its realism, a quality virtually absent in the British mainstream media and cinema. While the story is fictional, the plot is entirely based on real horror stories from people on benefits interviewed by Ken Loach and his long-time scripwriter Paul Laverty.

The dramatic vigour of the movie lies in the absurdities that benefit claimants have to face, supported by cogent and astute performances. Both the filmmaker and the actors and in sync with the plight of the people they depict. The film is also a reminder that a honest and trustworthy person could eventually stumble into such horrible predicament, and so we should always exercise solidarity.

DMovies asked Ken Loach whether British working-class people are likely to lose their dignity and self-respect even more in the next couple of years, given our Theresa May’s rabid rhetoric against people on benefit and the new rules being implemented. Ken seemed to agree: “With Brexit comes economic collapse, lower wages, more unemployment, and the government will likely make it harder for people on benefits”. He also noted that new rules have already been put in place: “now the Job Centre can’t even tell you what jobs are available, even if they have it in the computer in front of them. They are there to punish, and not to help people”. He finished off his answer with a very political statement: “for the first time we have a socialist at the top of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. Not even Clement Attlee was a socialist; he sent troops to fight. We have to seize this unique opportunity.”

I, Daniel Blake was out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, October 21st (2016). It’s available on BBC iPlayer from January 14th to February 4th (2019), just click here for more information. On Disney+ UK on March 4th, 2022.

We strongly recommend that you watch it, whether you agree with Ken’s political convictions or not. Ultimately, this is a film about human dignity.

Click here in order to read our exclusive interview with Ken Loach.