I, Daniel Blake (2017)

Really Surprised!

How sad is this?

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I watched 'I Daniel Blake' and it just shocked me how much truth it portrayed. Not only in the U.K. but in other countries also. Food banks in this day and age? What a disgrace, greed and ignorance will be etched into this era. Daniel Blake captures my mood and despair trying to compete with bureaucracy after bureaucracy, paper work, online forms that crash half way through. No wonder people commit suicide, but Daniel fights back for all he's worth and befriends a young girl with two children who's also down on her luck trying to survive. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, it made me feel happy at those who cared and angry at those who didn't.

In Newcastle, England, the title character (played by Dave Johns) is a widowed carpenter in his late fifties who is on the mend from a heart attack. In trying to get benefits for time off work (as recommended by his doctor), he gets stuck in a quagmire of bureaucracy. During one bad visit at a government office, he befriends Katie (Hayley Squires), an unemployed, single mother of two young children who has also been mistreated by government workers."I, Daniel Blake" is another courageous film by the team of director Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty that focuses, in a realistic way, on the downtrodden who are too often ignored. While this is praiseworthy, the downturn is that the overall effect can be depressing and frustrating. While the last half hour was moving in a different direction, a final plot twist thwarted this - therefore preventing the story from adding more richness to its depth.Johns and Squires are terrific in their performances as two society-rejects trying to get by and helping each other out when they can. Despite their hardships, they continue to maintain as much of their humanity as they can. Johns' appeal goes further in scenes when Daniel pokes fun at humourless nincompoops on power trips.The film has some telling (and harsh) statements of modern society and bureaucracy. There is a very noticeable contrast in how kindly the poor are treated at a food bank (run by volunteers) vs. the despicable way they are treated by government departments (run by taxpayer-funded employees). The movie has been criticized for its depiction of government employees. Among this group, there is one such character who seems to stand out as she has more soul and humanity than her peers. The film might have achieved greater depth if it had delved more into her personal story.In any case, this movie is likely to be understood by anyone has ever experienced hard times; anyone who has ever felt empathy for anyone who has experienced hard times; or anyone has ever experienced an overwhelming desire to throttle someone who is an insensitive, incompetent, arrogant, ignorant, overpaid, bureaucratic miscreant.

For more than 50 years, Ken Loach (KES) has been making films that cause us to think about our current political and social climates, no matter what race your are or where you come from, because a lot of us suffer from the same overall issues, whether it be medically, financially, or a corrupt government. Loach has never been shy to show any of these topics in his films over the years as well as in real life interviews. If you've ever attended a screening a film festival or movie where Loach is the director behind the movie, you will immediately know what you're in for, which is usually a story of someone being beat by the system, despite all of the honest and good things they do. His film I, Daniel Blake is no different, which isn't a bad thing. It's won a ton of awards and even won the Palme d'Or award at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. The movie follows a fifty-something man named Daniel Blake who is a skilled carpenter, but is out of work due to having a heart attack. After his recovery, his doctors say he is not ready to go back to work yet, but the job assessment people say otherwise. This puts Daniel in a bad situation as employers won't hire him, because his doctors say he's unfit, but others have checked him as cleared, which leads to Daniel not getting a job and zero government assistance due to a clerical error.As he tries to fix this situation, Loach shows us the frustrating and sometimes funny series of events in trying to fix a bureaucratic mishap by being put on hold for hours on end or someone who is up there in years, trying to work a computer. After the few laughs, it really hits home as the underlying message is that we now live in a time where people are not cared for or listened to, but rather treated as cattle with no purpose. It's a system designed to leave behind the less than fortunate, but honest people. Along the way though, Daniel meets a nice woman named Katie, who has moved from here home with her kids, but is not in a good situation financially or even job-wise.Still, she does what it takes to feed her kids, even if it means she starves for days on end or has to take on other forms of employment that might be illegal. It's here that we see that despite the rough situations that both Daniel and Katie are in, they are still good human beings and help each other out when they can, because the system certainly won't. As with most Loach films, things aren't exactly happy and good feelings. What he does well here is show very realistic characters in very subtle ways with their actions and dialogue.I, Daniel Blake is a fantastic film that flows well with some truly solid performances. It not only shows certain aspects of everyday life perfectly, but also makes them relevant an connects us to one another. There are moments where things can be a bit preachy and could wander into cliche territory, but it doesn't kill the film, due to the simplistic nature and heart warming characters that are on screen. No matter how much social or political is thrown out here, the film is still a great work of art.

I tend to associate Ken Loach's cinema to a certain set of elements that are part of any society or any country in the world: sadness, hopelessness, desperation, people on the brink of giving up on life. Feelings or sensations that human beings have to deal with the best they can. And it's not always easy to keep up a balance between your personal life and work and try to keep this unwelcome visitor at bay. Sometimes, it looks like they'd take pride in being owners of an unquenchable desire to prey on your weaknesses, to show you that there's nothing in the world that's worth fighting for. And just as a peasant who skins a rabbit on a damp and frost winter morning, we are also feel unprotected without our armour.I might have overdone it with this metaphor but it goes a long way to show what to me is as clear as the blue blue sky. Ken Loach is at his peak when he talks about what he knows best. I, Daniel Blake, tells us the story of Daniel Blake, a joiner from Newcastle who has recently had a heart attack and has been forced to go into early retirement. His struggling too get the pension he deserves after 40 years of hard work moves my heart as it'd move any, even if they were made out of stone. His daily fight with bureaucracy, his dignity-intact throughout the film despite having had to put up a fight against the new digital world, one he doesn't understand.He's someone everybody can relate to since he takes it upon himself to keep being honest in the face of adversity. He's not alone is his nightmare, though. There's another character, a young mother, recently divorced, who can barely cope with being a mother of two touching children, let alone with being the family's only bread-winner.One would expect one of these two characters to pull own the other into the abyss but nothing further from the truth. they strive and fight to drag themselves out of their misery. Whether they succeed or not, I won't give away to the reader. let's just say there was a moment where I couldn't put up with it any longer and burst into tears; down my cheeks the rolled. Is there anything left out there worth fighting for?