How the films of Ken Loach speak to the problems of modern Britain
A filmmaker who dedicates his craft to the welfare of the British people, Ken Loach’s work is remarkably noble, creating movies that challenge pertinent national conversations and debates across the country. Pioneer of British social realism, Loach is a director known for his provocative filmmaking methods and stark attitude towards some of the most divisive and sensitive modern issues.
Starting as a director for BBC television in the 1960s, the director’s ten contributions to the BBC’s Wednesday Play anthology series would quickly establish his name in the industry. Portraying downtrodden working-class people, Loach continues to be a social campaigner to this day, casting mostly unknown actors in his films that strive for realism in multiple ways, including by incorporating local dialects no matter the international language barrier.
Creating films that feel like they charge the national conversation, Loach hit modern stardom in 2016 with the Palme d’Or-winner I, Daniel Blake, which rocked the nation upon its release and even caused a political stir. Sadly for the state of contemporary Britain, many of the issues that Loach had to tackle back in the day remain pertinent today.
How the films of Ken Loach speak to the problems of modern Britain
A woman’s right to an abortion – Up the Junction (1965)
Granted, the problem that this film arises may be more applicable to the current situation in the USA, where the Roe v. Wade decision was recently overturned, preventing thousands of women from getting abortions in several different states. Whilst the same rights don’t feel as threatened in the UK, it is always important to consider the forgotten significance of such protections in British society.
Loach’s 1965 TV play Up the Junction explored this issue with quite some depth, prompting discussion among the ten million viewers of the programme across the UK. No doubt contributing to the debate that led up to the Abortion Act of 1967, which legalised the termination of a pregnancy in the UK, Loach’s film was a deeply personal study that continues to make a considerable impact on modern society.
Poverty and homelessness – Cathy Come Home (1966)
Sparking national outrage upon its broadcast in 1966, the TV play discussed issues not widely presented in contemporary media, tackling such problems as homelessness, unemployment and poverty. Watched by 12 million people, a quarter of the British population at the time, Loach’s hard-hitting film made a massive national impact, prompting a flurry of phone calls to the BBC and a serious discussion about the film’s themes in parliament.
Having a genuine political impact on the state of national homelessness, the charity ‘Crisis’ was formed a year after the film’s release in light of the furious public reaction. The organisation was created to help rehabilitate homeless people.
The broken education system – Kes (1969)
Recognised as Loach’s most iconic piece of cinema, Kes was only the director’s second feature film but felt like creating a master-craftsman at the very top of his game. Based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines, the film follows a working-class English boy who spends much of his free time caring for and training his pet kestrel, leaving much of the reality of his uninspiring surroundings behind him.
A tragic critique of the British education system that sorted children into different types of schools depending on their academic ability, Loach proposed that this system was detrimental to the growth and development of children across the country. Simon Golding, who wrote the 2006 book Life After Kes, states: “It [the film] should be dedicated to all the lads who had failed their 11-plus. There’s a colossal waste of people and talent, often through schools where full potential is not brought out”.
Power in a union – Looking for Eric (2009)
Loach’s 2009 movie Looking for Eric is an inspiring study of how one can find power in a union with friends, family and idols. The film itself follows Eric (Steve Evets), a football fanatic postman whose life is descending into crisis, until a vision of the philosophical player Eric Cantona comes into his life, prompting him to change how he looks at the world around him.
Sweet and whimsical, the film is among Loach’s most uplifting movies, tackling some lighter themes of companionship in the background. As Loach says of the film: “We wanted to deflate the idea of celebrities as more than human. And we wanted to make a film that was enjoying the idea of what you and I would call solidarity, but what others would call support for your friends really, and the old idea that we are stronger as a team than we are as individuals”.
With union workers across the UK striking for better pay, Looking for Eric and Loach’s 1991 film Riff-Raff speaks to a hope for a better future.
Cost of living crisis – I, Daniel Blake (2016)
Winning the prestigious Palme d’Or upon its release, the significance of Loach’s I, Daniel Blake stretched far beyond the limits of the cinema screen. Discussed in parliament by the Labour Party’s then-Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, Loach even appeared on BBC’s topical debate programme Question Time when the film was released to translate how the film reflects modern British life to market and discuss the film’s themes.
A powerful condemnation of a broken welfare system, the film follows a single 60-year-old man recovering from a heart attack who helps to care for a young single mother and her two kids who are trying to survive in poverty. Attempting to live on two different ends of the same issue, the two characters act as each other’s support lines in the modern classic, brilliantly bringing the hardship of the cost of living crisis to life.
The gig economy – Sorry We Missed You (2019)
Ken Loach’s latest film may not be his most thematically nuanced, bashing you over the head with its blatant message about the injustice of the modern gig economy, but his effort is nonetheless noble. Featuring the likes of Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood and Rhys Stone, the film follows a self-employed delivery driver and his wife who struggle to make ends meet and support their family.
It explains how such delivery companies can exploit labour forces, escaping responsibility by putting the onus on the worker to rent out their own van, among other tasks, without the protection of the company itself.
As MP Frank Field says of the film in an interview with The Guardian: “They are being forced into self-employment as there is no other option. And then, as our reports and the film show, that regime gets you by the throat. It is a form of such exploitation that it would be very difficult for the supreme court to differentiate between this and other forms of modern slavery”.
