Ken Loach Double Bill at Chorlton Irish Club
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
Ken Loach is enjoying a bit of a moment right now, his fiery 2016 benefits drama I, Daniel Blake won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year and merited a shout-out from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn along the way to earning the director his strongest ever opening. This March, Irish Mancunian are bringing I, Daniel Blake and Loach’s previous film Jimmy’s Hall to Chorlton Irish Club for a inspiring double bill.
I, Daniel Blake‘s blistering Newcastle-set depiction of Britain’s benefit system righteously highlights the systemic inhumanity and jobsworth bureaucracy that cripples society’s most vulnerable people. With a typically empathetic approach, Loach emphasises the basic humanity of his working-class characters as he presents the relationship between a working mother and her two young children and a middle-aged carpenter recovering from a heart attack. Told with an easy wit and humour; the film is a welcome antidote to tabloid vitriol and demonisation and is sure to resonate with audiences.
Irish Mancunian follow I, Daniel Blake with Loach’s 2014 film Jimmy’s Hall. It is perhaps a less accomplished work, but this furious telling of socialist activist Jimmy Gralton’s return to his native Ireland after ten years in the United States is still suitably rousing. The film charts Jimmy’s opening of a young peoples centre – a place of learning, dancing and conversation – and the ire that it earns him from the Catholic Church. It’s another examination of the power and hypocrisy of our ruling organisations, and welcome reminder of the need for vigilance in our dealings with them.
