Ken loach

Kenneth Charles Loach was born in Nuneaton, England, in 1936. He graduated in law from St Peter’s College, Oxford, a university institution where he also developed his taste for theater as a member of the Experimental Theater Club. After his academic stage, he served two years in the RAF, the air force, before pursuing an artistic career, first as a stage actor, and then as a television director for the BBC.

His interest in the rights of workers and social concern manifested itself immediately, since in the 1960s he joined the Labor Party. Although his relationship with the party has gone through its ups and downs, he feels above all a socialist, in recent years he has identified with the ideas of Jeremy Corbin, for whom he has filmed some of his advertising spots in his campaigns electoral. On the other hand, the Conservative Party has always been the enemy to defeat, especially in the years in which the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher ruled, for him this woman represented the defense of the perks of the privileged and the demolition of the rights of the worker. .

Also in the 1960s, Loach would meet the woman of his life, Lesley Ashton, with whom he is still married and who has given him five children; one of them died in a car accident as a child, and two have also followed the path of cinema.

For the BBC, Loach made numerous documentary or docudrama programs, some of which were very combative when it came to showing poverty, unemployment or the lack of decent housing. Notable in this period are his contributions to the Wednesday Play anthology series where he delivered Up the Junction (1965), Cathy Come Home (1966) and In Two Minds (1967). This same year he marks his feature-length fiction directorial debut, Poor Cow , where he follows the tribulations of an 18-year-old girl, married to an abusive husband, and with a child. It will follow the following year Kes, which adapts a novel by Barry Hines, who also wrote the screenplay, about a troubled teenager who tries to find a way out by learning the art of falconry with falcons.

Despite the praise that Loach reaps with fiction, he parks this land to continue delivering television documentary works, some of them not unrelated to controversy. For example , The Save the Children Fund Film (1971) does not please the charity portrayed in itself, while Days of Hope (1975), made up of four installments, raises blisters for the vision that is given of army officers during the first World War. He teases even more Questions of Leadership (1983), in which he explores the behavior of unions, some of whose leaders were annoyed by his unaccommodating questions. Which Side Are You On?(1985), built around the poems and songs of coal miners during a strike, would be considered too politically biased, a reproach that would become common throughout his filmography. You can always tell which side Loach is on in a film, so he achieves the best results when his positioning isn’t too obvious, or if he’s elevated by his mastery of mise-en-scène.

With Jim Allen , a collaborator on Days of Hope , he began his return to fiction with the celebrated Hidden Agenda (1990), which addressed the British dirty war against IRA terrorism, and where he featured Frances McDormand and Brian Cox in the leading roles. The film won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, a festival where Loach is always well received, including his two Palmes d’Or for The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016). Loach would still repeat association with Allen in two titles, Raining Stones(1993), about the drama of a Catholic working-class family, which must pay for a daughter’s first communion dress, and Tierra y libertad (1995), which depicts the divisions of the left on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. . Loach will never write his scripts, although without a doubt his films are very personal, he finds scriptwriters with whom he is in tune and capable of putting together stories that interest him.

It is a good portrait of the underprivileged classes Riff-Raff (1991), about a botched job -the film put actors Peter Mullan and Robert Carlyle on the map- , on the other hand, it goes too far in Ladybird, Ladybird (1994), to the put in their sights the social services that take their children from a mother who does not seem to be able to take care of them. In any case, Loach is more accurate when he paints working-class people from British environments that he knows closely, than when he moves to other latitudes – La canción de Carla (1987), a love story that takes us to a Nicaragua in war, and which marks the first collaboration with screenwriter Paul Laverty–, or when addressing recent historical issues –the aforementioned The Wind that Shakes the Barley , about the repression of the desire for Irish independence at the hands of the “Black and Tans”. Although he can be somewhat annoying when ranting about the powerful who abuse those who belong to the humblest classes, he always knows how to impregnate his narration with realism in the ways of expressing himself, accents and jokes of the characters, often played by non-professional actors. which gives the stories a great naturalness. In any case, maybe the level drops in some of his titles like My Name is Joe (2000), Bread and Roses (2000) and The Gang .(2001), which in some aspects appear to be variations on the same theme, without major novelties. In return, the recurring screenwriter Laverty is getting into tune, and even in Cannes they will award his script for Happy Sixteen (2002), which alludes to the upcoming birthday of the adolescent protagonist. Loach has a team he feels comfortable repeating collaborations with, including regulars George Fenton , music composer, and Barry Ackroyd , cinematographer.

The attacks of 9/11 marked the whole world, including Loach who made his contribution to the collective film 11’09”01. September 11 (2002). It is not the only title signed with other directors, in 2005 he would make Tickets together with Abbas Kiarostami and Ermanno Olmi , and in 2007 To each his cinema From him. As for current affairs, the filmmaker would treat immigration with his characteristic passion in In a Free World… (2007) and the Iraq war in Route Irish (2010), which are not his most successful titles. . Instead it was an optimistic breath of fresh air. Looking for Eric(2009), in which a man in crisis receives advice from an unexpected magical character, the footballer Eric Cantona himself . Also La parte de los ángeles (2012), in which he follows several characters forced to complete social service hours, flutters a happier air than usual in the filmmaker.

The announcement that a film is going to be Loach’s last, due to his age, is a common catchphrase, but he always returns, he never tires of telling stories starring flesh and blood human beings, with problems that any worker understands, more if you are a father or mother of a family. For this purpose , I, Daniel Blake (2016), about an old man on sick leave, a magnificent person, who must adapt to the technological times of the Internet, is charming. And although it is not perfect, in Sorry We Missed You (2019) we connect with the problems of a family, in which the labor exploitation of the parent, who is dedicated to messaging, inevitably reach and excite the viewer.