I, Daniel Blake

The weather has been so miserable with a biting east wind and snow flurries that I went back to the cinema. What I saw did not cheer me up.

Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake was released last year to acclaim from international juries (prizes at Cannes, Locarno, San Sebastián, Stockholm, Vancouver, etc), critical acclaim and box office success. Set in Newcastle it threads together two stories. Widower, Daniel Blake, off sick after a heart attack at work and single mother of two young children, Katie, who has been moved to a council house in Newcastle because there is no accommodation for her in London.

They both struggle to receive Benefit payments. He has never used a computer and the forms are all on-line; she gets lost and is late for an appointment so her payments are suspended. It is the power of film that I left the cinema feeling troubled about my easy life and the tribulations that many less fortunate face. The protagonists are likeable, credible and ground-down by the system. In Daniel’s case he has to sell his furniture and becomes withdrawn. Katie resorts to a food bank, then shop lifting and prostitution. Here is a flavour of the dialogue.

Job Centre Floor Manager: There’s a special number if you’ve been diagnosed as dyslexic.
Daniel: Right, can you give us that ‘coz with computers, I’m dyslexic.
Job Centre Floor Manager: You’ll find it online sir.

It is a hard-hitting film that succeeds in making audiences feel thoroughly uncomfortable. I admire Loach’s craftsmanship and technique. But at heart it is political propaganda – Jeremy Corbyn was at the UK opening. The story is written to denigrate “the system” and achieves its objective. The story when looked at objectively is not entirely credible, nor does it offer any answers. That is the power of film: to persuade and manipulate perceptions and emotions.