i watched land and freedom last night as part of barcelona trip prep and loved it again
yes loach doesn't do "character" the way we expect film characters to be but in land and freedom it's actually very appropriate. the political was indistinguishable from the personal for a lot of the utopian collectivists who took up arms for the POUM. there is a moment in a barcelona pension when the lover of our liverpudlian hero says "i took a 7 day leave.. for a few days i don't want politics, no fighting, no trenches, i just want to feel human" and well i could not help peanut-gallerying "i regret to inform you are in a ken loach film my dear". the next morning she wakes up, discovers our liverpudlian hero has abandoned the POUM and is joining the regular communist-led brigades. she instantly disowns him, disavows her love, is off. they were so close to being "human", to being "characters"! but she gives it up in an instant when she discovers it might involve any sort of compromise. to me this feels extremely apposite to what people in that war were wrestling with.
the most interesting "character" to me by far is the granddaughter sorting through the clippings. up until the very last moment we think we know her story, and we think she's alone at the funeral, the only one who knows or cares about any of this. but she's found the old guy's buddies from the brigade! she's invited them! and she believes in the struggle! it's absurdly over the top and i loved it
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, 28 April 2017 10:53 (six years ago) link
One of his very best. I vividly remember long and loud applause at the Gft when it finished and that was not a special screening or a premier or anything. Need to revisit it.
― Heavy Doors (jed_), Friday, 28 April 2017 11:28 (six years ago) link
Up the Junction is amazing
― plax (ico), Thursday, 26 October 2017 20:03 (six years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wvGbwwWBXI
hi plax! xo
(send me your email, i've lost it again)
Haven't seen any TV stuff that early, just Cathy Come Home, which is the next year. Carol White is also in that, and Poor Cow.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 26 October 2017 20:07 (six years ago) link
The Price of Coal is still on youtube. It has really cracking, angry class-war dialogue, but also mixes it with genuinely funny shit. And I think generally, Loach is very bad at doing humour. But some of the cast playing miners + middle management were Northern comedy circuit/WMC type comedians and made the best of the funny stuff. Also I only just noticed Bobby Knutt died last month (RIP), he is really good in this.
― calzino, Thursday, 26 October 2017 21:05 (six years ago) link
that song is awesome.
plax, i sent you an email through ILX, did you get it?
― Susan Stranglehands (jed_), Sunday, 29 October 2017 21:50 (six years ago) link
saw Ladybird Ladybird (35mm) for the first time in ~25 years yesterday; what a punishing scorcher. Glad to see Crissy Rock has had a career, albeit little that's made it to the US apparently.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 13 May 2019 17:59 (four years ago) link
Sorry We Missed You is tremendous, their best since The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Rarely has a film insisting on the on-the-nose been this empathetic and worth the on-the-noseness.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 June 2020 17:48 (three years ago) link
is 'their' Loach's pronoun?
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:03 (three years ago) link
Didn't even notice, a result of writing an email to a student at the same time.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:06 (three years ago) link
He should really put that on his Twitter profile.
― Dirty Epic H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:09 (three years ago) link
Assumed you meant Loach and Paul Laverty.
― Rapsputin (Tom D.), Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:10 (three years ago) link
Loach and the working class
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:30 (three years ago) link
lol
― Rapsputin (Tom D.), Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:31 (three years ago) link
The Them That Theys The Theirsly
― Dirty Epic H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:42 (three years ago) link
yeah this is good, but I do find it a little too easy to click together the various news reports on austerity that make up its factual basis as I'm watching the film. As *films* his laverty stuff comes nowhere near the wednesday play stuff, particularly cathy come home where the documentary and narrative strands come together to make something far more polyvocal but as aggressively agit-prop. i saw it at a nearly empty screening at the barbican and the only people i heard comment afterwards were rich american gays who thought it was "depressing and boring"
― plax (ico), Sunday, 21 June 2020 11:46 (three years ago) link
i know this is a boring opinion btw
― plax (ico), Sunday, 21 June 2020 11:47 (three years ago) link
seconding the excellence of Cathy Come Home
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 21 June 2020 14:03 (three years ago) link
Thanks, plax and morbs. I’ll steer clear (like I wasn’t already going to).
― Dirty Epic H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 21 June 2020 14:06 (three years ago) link
Bleh.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 21 June 2020 14:30 (three years ago) link
Has anyone seen the documentary about Carol White, The Battersea Bardot?
― Colonel Radle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 21 June 2020 14:46 (three years ago) link
Also just found this song by a band I've never heard of:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhU3HoBNiqo
― Colonel Radle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 21 June 2020 14:48 (three years ago) link
Which song and video are pretty good upon first listen. Can't say the same for another, different song I found with the same title.
― Colonel Radle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 21 June 2020 14:55 (three years ago) link
Ah, the band is slightly misnamed on that video. Still hadn't heard of that, although now I can find mention in the archives.
― Colonel Radle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 21 June 2020 15:00 (three years ago) link
Also, although this probably not the, um, thread for it, I recently watched the Barry Hines-scripted Threads on MUBI, which lived up to its reputation. “The night the country didn’t sleep" indeed. Perhaps one day will read my copy of A Kestrel for a Knave as well.
― Colonel Radle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 21 June 2020 15:06 (three years ago) link
his Spirit of '45 doc was such enraging, execrable rose-tinted claptrap I didn't last long with it. I don't know if I was just in a grumpy mood, but it seemed unbearable at the the time.
― calzino, Sunday, 21 June 2020 16:00 (three years ago) link
I'm getting so pissed off my typing is stuttering
― calzino, Sunday, 21 June 2020 16:01 (three years ago) link
ran across this spirited attack
https://letterboxd.com/phk/film/sorry-we-missed-you/
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Monday, 13 July 2020 14:02 (three years ago) link
His own political history – the Workers' Revolutionary Party, the Socialist Workers Party, George Galloway's RESPECT Coalition – is like a timeline of the most vacuous, posturing elements of Britain's bourgeois celebrity Left. Any real causes he may have aided can be chalked up to the stopped-clock principle.
lol ... totally otm!
― calzino, Monday, 13 July 2020 14:21 (three years ago) link
A bit offside to have a go at his petite bourgeoisie roots, there is plenty enough to criticise about his movies or his predilection for crank left political wasters!
― calzino, Monday, 13 July 2020 14:33 (three years ago) link
lol harsh but broadly fair, not a critique of his film-making tho so
― Mein Skampf (Noodle Vague), Monday, 13 July 2020 15:04 (three years ago) link
i'd like to think about *why* most of the films are so unconvincing, such bad cinema. his politics are connected to that - they're missionary work, mostly, which accounts for some of the glaring duffness of tone, but i'd like to read a more complete account of their failures as movies, without running a rote "avant-garde vs realism" take. i mean yeah of course he's shit compared to Godard, but it'd be more interesting to think about why he's shit compared to say the Dardenne Bros
― Mein Skampf (Noodle Vague), Monday, 13 July 2020 15:08 (three years ago) link
Some good points in that attack/rant. I for one found some of the absolutely shit 'acting' in "Sorry We Missed You" did more to ruin the film than the ott piling on of tragic events. "Kes" rules forever, though.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Monday, 13 July 2020 16:02 (three years ago) link
I'm not saying Brizé's The Measure of a Man (2015) is classic, but I did enjoy infinitely more than My Name Is Joe and as heavy handed as it is, it does touch on the theme that we are all bad and should all feel bad, not just the tories or dead eyed bureaucrats dishing out human misery, we are all a bunch of bastards!
― calzino, Monday, 13 July 2020 16:39 (three years ago) link
I have read reviews where people Loach has coaxed some good performances from amateur actors. I always think the exact opposite, rather he has indoctrinated them into the ways of hack acting and it will take some work to undo that damage!
― calzino, Monday, 13 July 2020 16:47 (three years ago) link
loved the last film
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 13 July 2020 16:48 (three years ago) link
i feel like the point of using non-actors is not to have them "ACT"
― Mein Skampf (Noodle Vague), Monday, 13 July 2020 16:53 (three years ago) link
tbf Alfred if i watch a whole new Loach film now it's by accident/against my will
― Mein Skampf (Noodle Vague), Monday, 13 July 2020 16:54 (three years ago) link
The non-actress is the heart of the film, a bit like Chrissy Rock in Ladybird Ladybird.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 13 July 2020 16:59 (three years ago) link
The only non-actor who appeared in a Loach film that I can remember going on to have any k inf of acting career was, er... the guy who played Les Battersby in Coronation Street! I stand corrected if there are others.
― The Fields o' Fat Henry (Tom D.), Monday, 13 July 2020 17:04 (three years ago) link
... and kind, that is, not any k inf.
― The Fields o' Fat Henry (Tom D.), Monday, 13 July 2020 17:05 (three years ago) link
Martin Compston has had a very successful career.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Monday, 13 July 2020 17:09 (three years ago) link
Oh forgot him, better than Les Battersby for sure.
― The Fields o' Fat Henry (Tom D.), Monday, 13 July 2020 17:11 (three years ago) link
I enjoyed "I, Daniel Blake" despite myself. was the best of his 21st century films (that id seen) but still mawkish and hamfisted.
― Temporary Erogenous Zone (jim in vancouver), Monday, 13 July 2020 17:26 (three years ago) link
lol I meant I, Daniel Blake above not My Name Is Joe
― calzino, Monday, 13 July 2020 17:29 (three years ago) link
my name is Joe at least has a bit of moral complexity
― Temporary Erogenous Zone (jim in vancouver), Monday, 13 July 2020 17:29 (three years ago) link
The 60s films and wednesdays plays were a total revelation to me when I saw them. Cathy Come Home, Up the Junction, Poor Cow. The didacticism of the kitchen-sink narrative sections are disrupted and often contradicted by the polyvocal audio documentary elements. They're good documents of postwar youth culture: music, dancing, teased hairstyles and leather jackets.
I tend to find the criticism of his films more tedious than anything I've come across in the films themselves: the purported bleakness feels humane and with more humour than critics let on, the purported hysteria and exaggeration disregards the scale of human cruelty in the real world and the insane baroquely nasty situations that people seem to be trapped in, day after day. There are certainly far more noxious figures in the british politico-media aristocracy and at the very least he's made a film world that is recognisable and means something. I'd definitely take him over Mike Leigh with his nastily misogynistic morality plays. I daniel blake was mawkish yeah but felt legitimate and urgent when 'austerity' had completely ossified into a journalistic bookmark with no referent. If he's as shit as people say he is, it really is a testament to what a cesspit the establishment press is.
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 14 July 2020 17:29 (three years ago) link
Anyway, it always makes me laugh when broadsheet newspaper critics try having a go at films for being simplistic when you see the lists of shitty films that get acclaimed year after year.
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 14 July 2020 17:32 (three years ago) link
Great posts, plax. I mostly agree but you've explained why I agree, which I wasn't quite sure of until I read it, tbh.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Tuesday, 14 July 2020 22:58 (three years ago) link