|
Welcome to Online Film Home! |
|
|
Cannes 2023 :: Killers of the Flower Moon :: Martin Scorsese’s Bitterest Crime Epic Martin Scorsese triumphs yet again. A story about greed, corruption, and the mottled soul of a country that was born from the belief that it belonged to anyone callous enough to take it.. |
|
Berlinale 2023 :: Full Winners List This year’s jury, headed by Kristen Stewart, gave
the Golden Bear award to the French documentary “On the Adamant..” The Silver Bear for
Best Lead Performance notably went to child star Sofia Otero for “20,000 Species of Bees.”
Philippe Garrel's “The Plough” was.. |
|
BAFTA 2023 :: ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’
Dominates BAFTA Awards With Seven Wins “All Quiet on the Western Front” dominated the BAFTA Awards in London on
Sunday night with a record-breaking seven wins for a film not in the English languag,
including for Best Director.. |
|
Berlinale 2023 :: Golshifteh Farahani :: Talks Role Of
Art In Iran “In A Dictatorship Like
Iran, Art Is Essential, It’s Like Oxygen.” Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, who is at the
Berlin Film Festival as a member of Kristen Stewart’s jury, has talked passionately about the
importance of art.. |
|
SIFF 2023 :: Shirin Ebadi :: Until We Are Free
This is the amazing, at times harrowing,
simply astonishing story of a woman who would never give up, no matter the risks. The first
Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Shirin Ebadi has inspired millions around
the globe.. |
|
IFFR 2023 Awards :: 'Le spectre de Boko Haram' and
'Endless Borders' are the victors Cyrielle Raingou’s documentary took home the Tiger Award, whilst Abbas
Amini’s feature won the VPRO Big Screen Award, as the Dutch gathering celebrated its in-
person comeback.. |
|
Winners of the 2022 ‘Sepanta Awards’ :: 15th Annual
Iranian Film Festival This year, the
festival presented 50 films from Iran, USA, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Greece, UK, Canada,
Australia, and Denmark…, ranging from fiction, documentary, short, animation…. to the
music video.. |
|
Opinion :: Will Venice Protests Help or Hurt filmmakers
in Iran? As the Venice Film Festival
celebrates Iranian cinema — with four Iranian films screening at the 79th Biennale — back
home in Tehran, Iranian filmmakers and artists are facing the harshest crackdown in
decades.. |
|
Biennale Cinema 2022 :: Awards Ceremony
Official Awards of the 79th Venice Film Festival.
Announced by the five international Juries, chaired by Julianne Moore, during the Awards
Ceremony that was held on Saturday 10th September at 7:00 pm..
|
|
Coming: 15th Annual Iranian Film Festival! : San
Francisco: Sep. 17-18 This year, the
festival presents 50 films from Iran, USA, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Greece, UK, Canada,
Australia, and Denmark…, ranging from fiction, documentary, short, animation…. to the
music video. We are happy and proud to.. |
|
|
I, Daniel Blake An extremely Ken Loach-y Ken Loach film
Christy Lemire, rogerebert.com December 23, 2016
I, Daniel Blake marks yet another well-told chapter in director Ken Loach's powerfully populist filmography. -- Rotton Tomatoes
Returning to filmmaking after saying he was retiring in 2014, the 80-year-old Loach rails against the system with his trademark style of stripped-down social realism. Despite the film’s deliberate pace, quiet tone and intimate camerawork, his rage is unmistakable. His drive to tell the stories of ordinary citizens is clearly as strong today as it’s ever been, and he isn’t interested in letting anybody off the hook with a happy ending.
“I, Daniel Blake” is an extremely Ken Loach-y Ken Loach film, for better and for worse.
The surprise winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival follows a middle-aged, blue-collar carpenter struggling to navigate the bureaucracy of the British benefits system after an injury leaves him unable to work. Aside from some glimmers of humor early on, it is relentlessly bleak and not terribly subtle as it attempts to create an abiding feeling realism. But Loach’s film also features some stirring performances and a strong sense of place in its depiction of working-class Newcastle.
Stand-up comedian Dave Johns, starring in his first feature film as the title character, has an everyman directness that makes him instantly relatable before we even see him. We hear him first, over the opening titles, answering ridiculous, circular questions from a government health-care agent that don’t get to what’s really ailing him: his heart. With his thick, musical accent, Daniel can’t help but respond with humor and incredulity in the face of such cluelessness. Who hasn’t felt the same frustration, whether it’s with the bank, a utility company or our own health insurance provider?
But this truly is just the beginning for Daniel, who runs into an even more maddening battle when he physically goes to the benefits office with the hope that an actual human being might help him. Here’s where the veteran director and his collaborator of many years, screenwriter Paul Laverty, undermine their very worthwhile point, though. Except for one unusually kindhearted woman, they depict all the employees there as monsters, from security guards to case analysts to managers. It’s a pretty black-and-white situation without a whole lot of room for shading.
While he’s there, however, Daniel meets a young woman who’s in an even direr financial situation than he is: Katie (Hayley Squires), a single mother who recently moved to town with her daughter and son because they couldn’t afford to live in London anymore. Katie dreams of returning to college and getting a degree, but in the meantime she goes door-to-door seeking house cleaning work and forgoing dinner so her kids can eat. For the most part, Loach depicts her plight in matter-of-fact fashion but with obvious appreciation for this character’s sacrifices. Her welfare claim rejected, Katie goes with great shame to a food bank to feed her kids in the film’s most quietly powerful scene. Subsequent acts of desperation, however, become increasingly melodramatic and maudlin.
But the friendship that develops between Daniel and Katie is rooted believably mutual sympathy, compassion and respect. Daniel, a widower with no children of his own, comes to function as a father figure to the kids and a much-needed handyman in the family’s dilapidated apartment. In return, the gregarious but obviously lonely Daniel gets to enjoy their company, including a pleasingly platonic relationship with Katie. The sweetness and simplicity of their arrangement is the film’s chief bright spot in an otherwise complicated world.
Returning to filmmaking after saying he was retiring in 2014, the 80-year-old Loach rails against the system with his trademark style of stripped-down social realism. Despite the film’s deliberate pace, quiet tone and intimate camerawork, his rage is unmistakable. His drive to tell the stories of ordinary citizens is clearly as strong today as it’s ever been, and he isn’t interested in letting anybody off the hook with a happy ending.
Escapist cinema, it is not. But with “I, Daniel Blake,” Loach is using the medium for one of its most crucial purposes: to shine a light on injustices he sees all around him, as well as on our capacity for human decency.
Delicious
|
|
Choose an item to go there!
|
|
| | | | |