Director Ken Loach, 1980
I, DANIEL BLAKE B
Great Britain France Belgium
(100 mi) 2016 d: Ken
Loach Official
site
Despite winning the coveted Palme d’Or first prize award at
Cannes, the second time for Loach after previously winning for The
Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), this holds surprisingly little clout in
Chicago, as despite the recognition from the most prestigious film festival in
the world, it was relegated to the small 100-seat theater at the Music Box, as
the larger main theater (nearly 800 seats) was screening some unheard of film
entitled Band Aid
(2017) that took center stage. As
incomprehensible as this sounds, this accurately describes how much these
awards matter to theater owners, as they simply couldn’t care less. And to be honest, for this film to be chosen
over Maren Ade’s Toni
Erdmann (2016), which is not only more entertaining, but far more original
in scope, easily making it one of the film experiences of the year, is not just
a head-scratcher, but inexcusable, yet it’s not the first time a Cannes jury
got it wrong. Despite making a powerful
indictment of a dysfunctional British social system, this is not even among the
upper echelon of Ken Loach films, lacking the artistry, but instead continually
follows a conventional format of what might be called misery porn, like Paddy
Considine’s Tyrannosaur
(2011), where viewers are forced to endure a relentlessly downward trajectory
that reaches gloomy and eventually tragic proportions. While this is basically a trip through the
British welfare system that couldn’t be more exasperating, where the system has
lost its ability to retain “human” values, the downward spiral is simply too
convenient overall and doesn’t really get into the intricacies of the issues,
but instead tells the story in black or white, were people are all good or all
bad. Unlike the world’s perception, having
worked in this field for more than three decades, my personal experience is
that most bureaucratic workers are really more interested in “helping” others
than is usually depicted on television or in movies, and do what they can,
while the State’s repressive measures prevent them from doing so. Loach
provides the stereotypical negative perception, where workers are the bogeyman
instead of the State, which is a far cry from the truth and one major
disappointment with the film, as it’s far more complex, though the State’s
desired goal does seem to be to make things so harrowingly difficult that
people simply give up out of human frustration.
Yet the film doesn’t reveal anything that wasn’t already better
expressed in Cristi Puiu’s starkly realistic Romanian film The
Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), a scathing exposé of social injustice that
reveals the futility of challenging an antiquated authoritarian system, where
layer upon layer of corruption reveals a permanent state of laziness and apathy
in workers that make the system so profoundly ineffective, breathing so much
more life into a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare that is closer to a death
spiral than a social service. Loach has
created a gentler version of a journey through an absurd set of State rules
that make little sense, where it immediately starts to resemble a road through
hell paved with one Sisyphean obstacle after another, with no one either
intelligent or wise enough to help people navigate their way through the
system, while those that try get chastised for it by their superiors.
In comparison, Loach’s own film, MY NAME IS JOE (1998), is a
fiery revelation, magnificently acted, far more original in creating a
compassionate working class hero who is stifled by a social situation that
seems dire and hopeless, where there is literally no outlet to a better world,
yet the essential human decency emboldened in the troubled character of Joe
(Peter Mullan) is unmistakable, while the Dardenne’s bleak and unredeeming
ROSETTA (1999) is another example, featuring a remarkable performance by a
non-professional (Émilie Dequenne), where she is a teenager determined and at
wit’s end to find a job to emancipate herself from the abject poverty of living
with her alcoholic mother in a trailer park, pacing back and forth like a caged
animal during her agonizing search, bringing a ferocity of spirit that to this
day is unforgettable. These films are on
another level of authenticity and social realism, offering the barest glimmer
of hope without any sentimentality, where nothing is exaggerated or abstract,
but confined within the world in which they live, providing no wiggle room for
the audience that feels just as constricted, as we so fully embrace the world
of the characters onscreen. Loach’s new
film feels underwritten, even incomplete by comparison, bordering on
sentimentality, as the director doesn’t have a neutral bone in his body, where
the characters aren’t nearly so fleshed out, feeling predetermined, with
viewers easily able to predict the final outcome, so this is a conventionally
told film that offers few surprises, where its subject matter of human decency,
however, couldn’t be more timely, receiving a 15-minute standing ovation when
it premiered at Cannes. At the center of
the picture is British standup comic Dave Johns as Daniel Blake, a working carpenter
who suffers a heart attack early in the film, putting him out of work, forced
to apply for sickness benefits, where his condition is evaluated not by a
physician or medical team, but by a bureaucratic functionary who takes greater
interest in checking the boxes than learning about the extent of his medical
condition. It comes as no surprise that
his application is denied, but then he’s not allowed to appeal until after he
receives a mandatory phone call that should have preceded the written decision. While in the social services office, he
witnesses the rude treatment to another family, Katie (Hayley Squires), a
single mother of two children who has been relocated nearly 300 miles from
London to Newcastle for its cheaper cost of living, but is unfamiliar with the
city and knows no one there, so took the wrong bus and arrived late for her
appointment. Both are thrown out of the
office, though they’ve hardly committed any offense except to be outraged at
their inhumane treatment. Apparently the
State wants their mistreated recipients to go quietly into the night. In the process of commiserating over their
circumstances, Blake realizes Katie’s home is lacking many working amenities,
where he’s more than willing to fix things that are either broken or not
working, making their life a little more bearable. In the process, Katie’s family shares meals
with Blake, but Katie goes hungry, making up some excuse about how she just
ate.
Certainly the most upsetting scene of the film is a trip to
the food bank, with Blake accompanying Katie and her children, where there is a
line extending around the block waiting to get in. When they finally get inside, a woman helps
pick out items and places them in plastic bags, but Katie is so worn out and
hungry, she devours the first thing she sees before breaking down in tears,
consumed by shame and humiliation, a shocking scene that is unbelievably
moving, showing great restraint and far more sympathy than the subject usually
receives, yet also providing a blunt reminder of the terrible things hunger
drives people to do. Things only grow
worse, as despite Blake’s help, Katie’s situation only becomes more desperate,
where there are men that prey upon women in desperate straits, swooping in like
vultures for the kill, where by that time, pride be damned, she’s willing to do
nearly anything for money. Blake,
meanwhile, is suffering his own setbacks, where his appeal must be entered
online and he’s computer illiterate.
Requiring the help of others, he slowly manages to make some progress,
only to see the computer freeze or crash before he finishes, where he has to
start all over again — a grim reminder of his uncertain fate, where his life is
literally in the hands of others. As he
waits endlessly for an appeal, he has no income coming in, selling all his
belongings, where he’s caught in an absurd no man’s land where he also applies
for unemployment benefits, where to receive benefits he’s required to look for
work, even though he’s unable, but he dutifully makes the rounds, walking
endlessly in circles, asking employers to kindly sign his resumé as proof he
was looking, yet when he shows up for his mandatory appointment, he’s
threatened with sanctions, where he’s reminded constantly of the negative
consequences, losing benefits for up to 13 weeks, 26 weeks, or 3 years for
failure to comply. Stuck in a Catch-22
situation where he’s still unable to work, while the Department for Work and
Pensions never even contacted his doctor before rendering their decision, where
the delay before he can receive an appeal hearing seems to take forever,
sapping all the strength out of him, where both he and Katie find themselves in
dangerous situations, more desperate than ever, with few, if any, options
remaining. Predictably, Blake’s public
protest, a showy scene writing graffiti on a public building demanding a
hearing before he starves, is a last gasp of self-respect that creates some
momentary street commotion, but is roundly condemned by authorities and only
gets him arrested. Thwarted at every
turn, life only becomes more and more unbearable, spiraling into an endless
void, where viewers can sympathize with his inhumane mistreatment, stripped of
his dignity in the process, or they can simply wash their hands of these kinds
of problems and pretend they don’t exist.
The two central characters are appealing, at least what we know of them,
so the audience feels morally invested in what happens to them, but the film
ends with a kind of muted emotion, where any number of outcomes are possible,
but few bring even an ounce of happiness, where the entire experience is like a
nightmarish wrong turn. Was this all a
bad dream or does it really happen? And
if so, how do we fix this kind of broken system? Enduring poverty and public humiliation is
not enough, apparently, to move those who don’t have to experience these kinds
of travails, so in this selfie-generation era an apathetic public simply looks
away and walks on.
It must be said, by the way, that British films that resort
to all manner of colloquial speech should be subtitled, as nearly 50% of what
was spoken was never understood.
Actually far more is understood in a typical Shakespeare play than in a
film like this. Part of that is the poor
sound quality in an older theater, but more to the point is the viewer’s unfamiliarity
with the language itself. Perhaps in
this case, missing the subtleties inherent to the story was not so important as
experiencing the overall sense of impending doom, where the State is literally
toying with people’s lives, but language is a significant part of any film, and
in this case, viewers need assistance.
By the way, the film was screened with subtitles at Cannes, as were
earlier Loach releases, SWEET SIXTEEN (2002) and The
Angel's Share (2012). Based on
thorough research in this area from earlier Loach films, Dialect
in Films: Examples of South Yorkshire., where the director in an obsessive
search for authenticity urges actors to speak in their natural accents, one
would think producers and/or distributors would get the message, but as the
film suggests, in a broken or uncaring system, helpful ideas like these are
quickly rejected out of hand.
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