[ A northern pub landlord confronts locals’ hostility towards
Syrian refugees in Loach’s latest – and possibly last – piece of
politically trenchant cinema]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE
THE OLD OAK REVIEW – KEN LOACH’S FIERCE FINAL CALL FOR COMPASSION
AND SOLIDARITY
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Peter Bradshaw
September 27, 2023
The Guardian
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_ A northern pub landlord confronts locals’ hostility towards
Syrian refugees in Loach’s latest – and possibly last – piece of
politically trenchant cinema _
In his 80s, Ken Loach is still dangerous., Photo by LOIC VENANCE /
AFP
A decade or so ago, the rumour was that Ken Loach
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quit. Then began a new parade of Conservative prime ministers in this
country, each shiftier and more mediocre than the last; Loach decided
he had more to say and do after all. What followed was a blaze of
energy, anger and productivity culminating in a remarkable late surge
– in fact, a trilogy, of which this might come to be seen as the
final episode. Working with his regular collaborator, the screenwriter
Paul Laverty, Loach has been taking on issues and stories that you
don’t see on the TV news or on glitzy streaming services, and showed
that film-makers could actually intervene in the real world. Loach got
questions about poverty and austerity asked in parliament; he moved
the dial.
Loach has also sought out the painful and unfashionable subjects,
marching to where the gunfire has been loudest. With I, Daniel Blake
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was the vivisectional experiment of austerity; with Sorry We Missed
You
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was the serfdom of the gig economy. Now, in The Old Oak, it is that
ugly phenomenon from which London’s liberal classes have turned aw
allaay in sorrowing distaste: refugees housed in hostels all over the
UK who are being abused and attacked by local people radicalised by
social media.
Pub landlord TJ Balllantyne (Dave Turner) is suffering a Job-like
ordeal: he is divorced and depressed with a grownup son who doesn’t
speak to him. The Old Oak is the name of his pub, the one community
meeting place in a deprived north-eastern former mining town – and
it is in dire need of refurbishment. (In this the film has echoes of
an earlier Loach work, Jimmy’s Hall
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His regulars are seething with rage, livid at the collapse in house
prices and brooding over YouTube videos about immigrants. They are
seething at neighbouring properties being bought for a song by real
estate companies and rented out exploitatively, thus collapsing the
value of the homes they’d hoped would effectively cushion their
retirement, and strip-mining value from the community. Then a busload
of terrified Syrians arrive and the tension gets worse.The film shows
that TJ makes what is possibly a strategic mistake: angry white locals
ask him to open up the pub’s long-dormant back room as a meeting
place to air their grievances. He refuses, but tactlessly allows it to
act as the venue for a food bank-style community supper for both
locals and Syrians, including Yara (Ebla Mari). She is a young Syrian
woman housed with her brother and elderly mother, desperate for news
of her father, imprisoned by the Assad regime.
TJ finds a gentle friendship with her, sneeringly misinterpreted by
some drinkers. There is a very moving scene where he takes her to see
Durham Cathedral; she is deeply affected by listening to the choir and
awed by the thousand-year-old building. She ponders the fact that she
will never again see the temples at Palmyra, built by the Romans and
destroyed by Islamic State. And Loach and Laverty fervently argue that
through solidarity and a recognition of real interests, British people
can naturally show empathy to immigrants and refugees.
As ever, Loach shows himself to be the John Bunyan
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social realism – or perhaps the Gerrard Winstanley
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Everard [[link removed]] of
the cinema. He is the fierce plain-speaker of political indignation
with a style that is unironised and unadorned, shot by Robbie Ryan in
simple daylit fashion, using first-timers and non-professionals in
front of the camera. It is a film-making language utterly without the
cynical twang that is de rigueur for everyone else. Thirty years ago,
the mischief makers of Lars von Trier
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talking about radical minimalism. They didn’t stick to it; Loach
did. I hope that this isn’t Loach’s final film, but if it is, he
has concluded with a ringing statement of faith in compassion for the
oppressed.
The Old Oak screened at the Cannes film festival
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on 29 September in UK and Irish cinemas.
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* Film Review
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* Ken Loach
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* The Old Oak
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