Nanker Phelge
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
No spoilers now
The DWP wins.
Ken Loache's film, I Daniel Blake, (Film about uk benefit regime) wins Palme d'Or.
- Thread starter treelover
- Start date
The DWP wins.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I should ask them. I don't imagine there's anyone here who can speak for them.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Here is what I posted up on Brixton boards about the film:
Saw "I, Daniel Blake"- It was in Walthamstow with my friend who lives there for £8 on a Saturday evening. Unlike Ritzy high prices.
Its on at Ritzy.
My (not a Corbyn supporter) Labour party friend I saw it with liked it. Said Theresa May and her Tory friends should be made to see it.
TBH I was not over keen on idea of seeing it. Seeing the trailer and I was afraid it would be to worthy. Honest worker up against the system.
It verged on that at times. Saved from this by Daniels young neighbours who know how to use the system and scam there way to survive. One point telling Daniel , the paragon of old school honest hard worker, that the system is there to grind him down. Its intentionally set up to do that. Something he is slow to learn. A different generation who have learnt to survive unlike him who naively believes in "doing the right thing" as politicians often say.
What also makes the film work is the other main character the single mum Katie. An outstanding performance by Hayley Squires. I , by chance , heard her talking about the film earlier in the day. She was passionate about it and the politics around it.
The growing relationship between her ( and her children) with the lonely widowed Daniel is very touching.
Despite my reservations about seeing the film I was swept up in it. It develops into a moving film. Juxtaposing the humanity of ordinary people under pressure with the alienating State bureaucracy that is humiliating them and destroying them. And is set up to do so. Interesting touch was that not everyone in the Job Centre is nasty. Its the (Capitalist) State that is the problem. With ordinary people caught up in it.
Benefits Street this is not. And from the radio interview with Hayley that is something that the film wanted to oppose.
Loach has worked with the same scriptwriter for years- Laverty. IMO they work as an equal partnership. Laverty is very much on the Left and sees his work as part of that.
They had done a lot of research. The scene in the Food Bank was apparently based on a real incident.
It has had good reviews. The critical one was the Evening Standard. By the ES normally good critic David Sexton. I wouldn’t read it if ur going to see the film as it gives to much away.Read it after or go to last couple of paragraphs.
Sexton says that Loach is not telling us anything "we" didn’t already know. Which is true in a way. So my question is why is this still going on? How is it that society hounds and punishes people with the least ? Does film make any difference?
Sexton does not have the imagination to ask these questions.
The one thing I think Loach/ Laverty succeed in is giving back those on benefits there humanity. TV like Benefits Street is as much "agitprop" as this film. Sexton is quick to accuse this film of being agitprop. But does not see the insidious way that media portrayals can work the other way.
Sexton spends the last two paragraphs of his review slagging off Loachs Marxist politics. ( He is a Marxist). Sexton says he should look up what it was really like in Soviet Union and North Korea. Loach has already dealt with Stalinism in his film about the Spanish Civil War. So really Sexton should take a closer look at that film.
In this country Loach does not have the regard he gets in France. Sexton has a dig at the film for this reason as well. It won at Cannes.
Sexton is interesting to read as the mainstream political class do there best to ignore Loach. He has had major awards in his long career. This countries most famous living film director and one wouldn’t think so with the reaction he gets from the establishment. Sexton inadvertently gives an example of the way he is viewed.
Sexton attitude, common in this country, is the middle of the road concern. Of course the way the system treats people is wrong but simple black and white views of people like Loach simply wont do. And would lead to totalitarian state if they did. Its all a very complicated issue and of course one would like to see things improved. Thats how people like Sexton go on.
I got the feeling from Sexton review is that he didnt like having to see this all up on screen. Makes it all to personal and real. Made him uncomfortable.
And that maybe why film still has a purpose.
Saw "I, Daniel Blake"- It was in Walthamstow with my friend who lives there for £8 on a Saturday evening. Unlike Ritzy high prices.
Its on at Ritzy.
My (not a Corbyn supporter) Labour party friend I saw it with liked it. Said Theresa May and her Tory friends should be made to see it.
TBH I was not over keen on idea of seeing it. Seeing the trailer and I was afraid it would be to worthy. Honest worker up against the system.
It verged on that at times. Saved from this by Daniels young neighbours who know how to use the system and scam there way to survive. One point telling Daniel , the paragon of old school honest hard worker, that the system is there to grind him down. Its intentionally set up to do that. Something he is slow to learn. A different generation who have learnt to survive unlike him who naively believes in "doing the right thing" as politicians often say.
What also makes the film work is the other main character the single mum Katie. An outstanding performance by Hayley Squires. I , by chance , heard her talking about the film earlier in the day. She was passionate about it and the politics around it.
The growing relationship between her ( and her children) with the lonely widowed Daniel is very touching.
Despite my reservations about seeing the film I was swept up in it. It develops into a moving film. Juxtaposing the humanity of ordinary people under pressure with the alienating State bureaucracy that is humiliating them and destroying them. And is set up to do so. Interesting touch was that not everyone in the Job Centre is nasty. Its the (Capitalist) State that is the problem. With ordinary people caught up in it.
Benefits Street this is not. And from the radio interview with Hayley that is something that the film wanted to oppose.
Loach has worked with the same scriptwriter for years- Laverty. IMO they work as an equal partnership. Laverty is very much on the Left and sees his work as part of that.
They had done a lot of research. The scene in the Food Bank was apparently based on a real incident.
It has had good reviews. The critical one was the Evening Standard. By the ES normally good critic David Sexton. I wouldn’t read it if ur going to see the film as it gives to much away.Read it after or go to last couple of paragraphs.
Sexton says that Loach is not telling us anything "we" didn’t already know. Which is true in a way. So my question is why is this still going on? How is it that society hounds and punishes people with the least ? Does film make any difference?
Sexton does not have the imagination to ask these questions.
The one thing I think Loach/ Laverty succeed in is giving back those on benefits there humanity. TV like Benefits Street is as much "agitprop" as this film. Sexton is quick to accuse this film of being agitprop. But does not see the insidious way that media portrayals can work the other way.
Sexton spends the last two paragraphs of his review slagging off Loachs Marxist politics. ( He is a Marxist). Sexton says he should look up what it was really like in Soviet Union and North Korea. Loach has already dealt with Stalinism in his film about the Spanish Civil War. So really Sexton should take a closer look at that film.
In this country Loach does not have the regard he gets in France. Sexton has a dig at the film for this reason as well. It won at Cannes.
Sexton is interesting to read as the mainstream political class do there best to ignore Loach. He has had major awards in his long career. This countries most famous living film director and one wouldn’t think so with the reaction he gets from the establishment. Sexton inadvertently gives an example of the way he is viewed.
Sexton attitude, common in this country, is the middle of the road concern. Of course the way the system treats people is wrong but simple black and white views of people like Loach simply wont do. And would lead to totalitarian state if they did. Its all a very complicated issue and of course one would like to see things improved. Thats how people like Sexton go on.
I got the feeling from Sexton review is that he didnt like having to see this all up on screen. Makes it all to personal and real. Made him uncomfortable.
And that maybe why film still has a purpose.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
It's not on down here until fucking DECEMBER.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
It is a commercial release. In the interview I heard with the actress who plays the single mother she did say they want people to contact them to show it in local communities etc. For free I assume.
Didnt say how this would work.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Where ru? I thought it was on general release. ie in all of UK now.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I'm in the Wild West of Wales. Things happen later here. We're still finishing the 1970s.
I Daniel Blake (15) - Torch Theatre
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
In cosmopolitan, metropolitan Middlesbrough, I've already missed two chances to see it. First time there was a free pre-screening I got tickets for, attached to a talk to promote the film, but I had a hospital appointment. Second time the same site said they were doing another screening in Teesside so I duly got another ticket, thinking it was slightly odd they were doing another in the same place. It was, I arrived 1 minute before it started only to find it was on at Teesside's other cinema.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Yeah, go on, make me feel even worse. Two fucking cinemas? Round here, it's one cinema on the other side of the water, or a dog on a string. And he generally does fuck-all most of the time.In cosmopolitan, metropolitan Middlesbrough, I've already missed two chances to see it. First time there was a free pre-screening I got tickets for, attached to a talk to promote the film, but I had a hospital appointment. Second time the same site said they were doing another screening in Teesside so I duly got another ticket, thinking it was slightly odd they were doing another in the same place. It was, I arrived 1 minute before it started only to find it was on at Teesside's other cinema.
Reno
The In Kraut
I think this would be far better as a TV movie than as a cinema release. At the cinema it will only preach to the choir, on TV it would reach a far wider and more diverse audience and it would be more likely to become a talking point. I doubt Cathy Come Home would have had that big an impact, had it not been a TV movie. Good for Loach that he keeps plugging on, I haven't been much of a fan of his recent films, they are basically propaganda and while they are in tune with my politics, I don't find propaganda very interesting. I want to see this one, because its subject matter is close to me, but I'll wait till I can watch it at home.
I will probably agree with much of the Standard review, which isn't a pan it's just not a rave. What I doubt is that the French particularely love Loach. They've never been huge fans of British social realist cinema and their version of Loach, the Dardenne brothers, make better films than Loach does these days.
The Cannes win wasn't awarded by France, it was awarded by an international jury headed by the Australian George Miller, director of the Mad Max films and it was very much about a political gesture in a political landscape where right wing populism is a major issue, rather than genuinely awarding the best film. Most European (and many American) art house films these days are European coproductions which involve French funding.
I will probably agree with much of the Standard review, which isn't a pan it's just not a rave. What I doubt is that the French particularely love Loach. They've never been huge fans of British social realist cinema and their version of Loach, the Dardenne brothers, make better films than Loach does these days.
The Cannes win wasn't awarded by France, it was awarded by an international jury headed by the Australian George Miller, director of the Mad Max films and it was very much about a political gesture in a political landscape where right wing populism is a major issue, rather than genuinely awarding the best film. Most European (and many American) art house films these days are European coproductions which involve French funding.
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planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
It's on at the Swansea Odeon from next Friday if that's any help. Bit closer to me than Milford Haven anyway.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
My Week Of Freedom ends just about then, and Mrs E doesn't want to see it ("too upsetting" - FFS, that's the bloody point!). I'll have a fight on my hands getting clearance to go and see it in Milford, as it is.
Hmm. Swansea, Friday, camper van, collect the Mrs Sunday...you know, it could just work. Thank you, you may have just given me an Idea.
Mr.Bishie
pickled egg
Totally agree. The audience in Brighton last night (the majority of) have never found themselves on fucking benefits.
Most of the people who have seen it said that they loved it, many were stunned into silence, and there have been many standing ovations, hope this translates into action.
A few people have been doing a lot, including posters on here, some including the unreconstructed left(SWP, etc) and the 'radical youth' not so much;.
Reno
The In Kraut
What action ? Most people who go to see it will have had their convictions confirmed, which is useless on a political level.
Well, maybe a mass march to give the issues a higher profile, just like the broad fronts have been doing for more global issues, as you are probably aware most of the people affected by this can't or won't go on it, they, like other groups that have been supported, need allies.
I, Daniel Blake - Ticket Pledge public group | Facebook
btw, for those with a few bob who want others who may be skint, etc to see it.
I, Daniel Blake - Ticket Pledge public group | Facebook
btw, for those with a few bob who want others who may be skint, etc to see it.
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Reno
The In Kraut
In you dreams. The film will mostly be seen by white, middle class Guardian readers and they won't learn anything new.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
cantsin
Well-Known Member
on R4 review show yday, 3 liberals all agreed it could / should lead to us all doing something about it all.....namely, volunteering at foodbanks.
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