I, Daniel Blake * * *

I Daniel Blake.  It feels so good to feel so bad

As an independent filmmaker Ken Loach is a bit like England’s miserable answer to Woody Allen. The flip side.  Why make them laugh when you can make them mad and sad?  

Like Woody Allen he has been around for years, making quality film after quality film and doing it his way.

Now he’s come out of retirement to do it again. His stories are mostly predicated on a cruel and heartless Britain.  (I must say, for such a shit country they’ve got no shortage of people trying to get into the place.)

His films are peppered with caring concerned kind people looking after each other whilst above them they feel the relentless oppression of the State.  Call it Hunger Games Lite.

The message in his latest film seems to be this:  People on Welfare equals good.  People who administer Welfare equals bad. But the formula isn’t going to work unless he can show us truly horrible baddies - and the ones Ken Loach shows us in I Daniel Blake are execrable.

Which leave me wondering,.....really?  Is it this awful?  Is it really this inflexible, this heartless, this demanding on the welfare recipients?  If it is, how come anyone is on welfare at all?  No one could meet the demands that are suggested in this film. Least of all a person so unfortunate they are on Welfare.  They’d all be ineligible, or would constantly fail to meet the draconian weekly requirements.  And would the “Job Center” really have such willfully sadistic people working as consultants and managers? Really?  That bad? Come on!

But if you put all that aside, and just look at the Welfare Admin  as “The Baddies” (and every drama has to have a Baddie), I Am Daniel Blake is a really good drama. Beautifully acted and quite moving.

Set in Newcastle England, a widower in his fifties (Daniel) is diagnosed with a bad heart but after answering a few questions wrongly in a follow-up phone call from the department he ends up ineligible for sickness benefits (quite a funny scene actually).  In the meantime he meets a single young Mum at the “Job Centre” and they become friends in a  lovely platonic way. To each other they show the care and concern that the state doesn’t. Life isn’t easy but they look out for one one another. The same with his next door neighbours, a right couple of likely lads selling dodgy  sport shoes.  

These are welfare recipients we can live with, which is just as well because that’s what we have to do  for two hours.  They’re kind and honest. They harbour no bitterness, they take pride in their appearance, they are not self-destructive, they feed their children and waste nothing on alcohol, tobacco and gambling, they diligently look for work - and still “The State” hates them.

It’s good drama, no doubt about it; so good it would seem some viewers think they’ve actually witnessed something that happened to these nice people he made us love.

Loach’s films are like hearing malicious gossip. What he tells us is so deliciously nasty we want to believe it with little regard for investigating the whole truth. They’re like rumours spread by over excited students busting for another protest march.   We are filled with righteous indignation.  Like Jesus finding the temple has become a den of thieves, we are ready to grab a whip to administer punishment.  And that’s quite a sexy feeling, I've got to tell you.  
No wonder so many people love this film! Go get some.