I, Daniel Blake (2016)
Country: GB/FR/BEL
Technical: col 100m
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Kema Sikazwe
Synopsis:
Having been signed off unfit for work, a Newcastle joiner finds himself in a limbo of the Benefits system, caught between rejection of his Employment Support Allowance and the appeal process, and ground down by the demands of seeking jobs he cannot take in order to qualify for Job Support. In the meantime he helps a single mother of two in her own predicament.
Review:
Loach's depiction of a faceless Benefits system in which citizens are held at bay in call centre queuing systems and put off with online form-filling. It is freighted with his customarily partial view of politics (every working class character is the salt of the earth, emotional ebb and flow are manipulated), but the issues are very real: how to care for a large unemployed population without encouraging it to remain out of work; Loach's answer, of course, is to allow civil servants to treat them as human beings. It is one of his best films of recent years, and provides a compelling perspective on the current state of the nation. Its lionized central character is also one of Laverty's most affecting creations.
Country: GB/FR/BEL
Technical: col 100m
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Kema Sikazwe
Synopsis:
Having been signed off unfit for work, a Newcastle joiner finds himself in a limbo of the Benefits system, caught between rejection of his Employment Support Allowance and the appeal process, and ground down by the demands of seeking jobs he cannot take in order to qualify for Job Support. In the meantime he helps a single mother of two in her own predicament.
Review:
Loach's depiction of a faceless Benefits system in which citizens are held at bay in call centre queuing systems and put off with online form-filling. It is freighted with his customarily partial view of politics (every working class character is the salt of the earth, emotional ebb and flow are manipulated), but the issues are very real: how to care for a large unemployed population without encouraging it to remain out of work; Loach's answer, of course, is to allow civil servants to treat them as human beings. It is one of his best films of recent years, and provides a compelling perspective on the current state of the nation. Its lionized central character is also one of Laverty's most affecting creations.
Country: GB/FR/BEL
Technical: col 100m
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Kema Sikazwe
Synopsis:
Having been signed off unfit for work, a Newcastle joiner finds himself in a limbo of the Benefits system, caught between rejection of his Employment Support Allowance and the appeal process, and ground down by the demands of seeking jobs he cannot take in order to qualify for Job Support. In the meantime he helps a single mother of two in her own predicament.
Review:
Loach's depiction of a faceless Benefits system in which citizens are held at bay in call centre queuing systems and put off with online form-filling. It is freighted with his customarily partial view of politics (every working class character is the salt of the earth, emotional ebb and flow are manipulated), but the issues are very real: how to care for a large unemployed population without encouraging it to remain out of work; Loach's answer, of course, is to allow civil servants to treat them as human beings. It is one of his best films of recent years, and provides a compelling perspective on the current state of the nation. Its lionized central character is also one of Laverty's most affecting creations.