A decade after his "The wind that shakes the barley", Ken Loach collected his second Palme d'Or award with "I, Daniel Blake". The general entertainment-seeking audience (who are used to rain-of-bullets, jaw-cracking-punches and explosion every three minutes), if they are ever enticed for whatever insane reason to buy a ticket to see this movie, may have a common question: who is the villain? An answer is actually provided near the end of the movie: the state. This movie is a bitter accusation against the heartless bureaucratic system.
The titular protagonist is 59, recently widowed, a carpenter by profession. His vicissitudes are only just beginning. While not noticeable on the surface, he is a patient recovering from heart attack. With the British social security system as a safety net, you would have thought that Blake is spared the agony of being driven to abject poverty, and even the threat of starvation looming in the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately, while there are several social security systems that might help him, he hits one road block after another, banging his head against the rigidity innate in these systems and officials that appear to relate more closely to robots than human beings. As the future looks bleak (he is selling one possession after another to stave off going to food banks that will rob him of his last scrap of dignity), a ray of hope appears. There is a good very chance that he can win an appeal against one of the "sanctions" that blocks relief money to which he is entitled. But, trying to freshen himself up in the washroom before the hearing, he dies of a sudden heart attack.
A subplot running parallel with Blake's fight against the bureaucracy is his friendship with a young woman, entirely Platonic. Katie has two young children, a girl and a boy, from two failed liaisons (not sure if they were marriages). Without a professional skill as Blake's (albeit working-class skill), she is financially even worse off, to the extent of going hungry because the provision from the food back is only enough to feed the children. Motivated by sympathy for a kindred human spirit, he becomes sort of a surrogate father figure of the family. Meanwhile Katie, with the meaning of "dignity" taking up more of a monetary bias, resorts to prostitution. When Blake discovers this, the relationship between them understandably suffers. When it is eventually mended, he is close to his last days.
Before watching the movie, upon learning that a stand-up comedian has been cast for the title role, I was a little surprised as most people would be. I am now fully convinced that Dave Johns is an excellent choice. If the posters have you believe that Blake is simply a manifestation of anger, it is misleading, intentional or not. The underdog that Johns portrays is indeed frustrated sometimes even exasperated. But he is patient, sometimes almost to the extent of stoic resignation. That is what makes him so endearing to the audience, plus of course his kindness to Katie and her children.
"I, Daniel Blake" stays well clear of sentimentality and is only a tad melodramatic at one or two places (such as the discovery of Katie getting into prostitution and the Blake's final death). Nor is this movie judgmental on a personal sense. An array of people paraded on the screen are depicted realistically. For example, when Katie is caught at shoplifting, the tough looking security in-charge turns out to be surprisingly humane and lenient, while the mild-looking store clerk has ultra-motives in the kindness he shows her. Likewise, the good and the bad equally populate the individuals Blake runs into, with none of them depicts with any exaggeration.
Dave Johns is a lovingly understated Daniel Blake that will have you weeping silent tears rather that breaking down in an emotional outburst. Hayley Squires, portraying Katie in stubbornly self-contained agony and muted defiance, matches Johns scene for scene in excellence. Briana Shann as the little daughter Daisy shines.
The titular protagonist is 59, recently widowed, a carpenter by profession. His vicissitudes are only just beginning. While not noticeable on the surface, he is a patient recovering from heart attack. With the British social security system as a safety net, you would have thought that Blake is spared the agony of being driven to abject poverty, and even the threat of starvation looming in the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately, while there are several social security systems that might help him, he hits one road block after another, banging his head against the rigidity innate in these systems and officials that appear to relate more closely to robots than human beings. As the future looks bleak (he is selling one possession after another to stave off going to food banks that will rob him of his last scrap of dignity), a ray of hope appears. There is a good very chance that he can win an appeal against one of the "sanctions" that blocks relief money to which he is entitled. But, trying to freshen himself up in the washroom before the hearing, he dies of a sudden heart attack.
A subplot running parallel with Blake's fight against the bureaucracy is his friendship with a young woman, entirely Platonic. Katie has two young children, a girl and a boy, from two failed liaisons (not sure if they were marriages). Without a professional skill as Blake's (albeit working-class skill), she is financially even worse off, to the extent of going hungry because the provision from the food back is only enough to feed the children. Motivated by sympathy for a kindred human spirit, he becomes sort of a surrogate father figure of the family. Meanwhile Katie, with the meaning of "dignity" taking up more of a monetary bias, resorts to prostitution. When Blake discovers this, the relationship between them understandably suffers. When it is eventually mended, he is close to his last days.
Before watching the movie, upon learning that a stand-up comedian has been cast for the title role, I was a little surprised as most people would be. I am now fully convinced that Dave Johns is an excellent choice. If the posters have you believe that Blake is simply a manifestation of anger, it is misleading, intentional or not. The underdog that Johns portrays is indeed frustrated sometimes even exasperated. But he is patient, sometimes almost to the extent of stoic resignation. That is what makes him so endearing to the audience, plus of course his kindness to Katie and her children.
"I, Daniel Blake" stays well clear of sentimentality and is only a tad melodramatic at one or two places (such as the discovery of Katie getting into prostitution and the Blake's final death). Nor is this movie judgmental on a personal sense. An array of people paraded on the screen are depicted realistically. For example, when Katie is caught at shoplifting, the tough looking security in-charge turns out to be surprisingly humane and lenient, while the mild-looking store clerk has ultra-motives in the kindness he shows her. Likewise, the good and the bad equally populate the individuals Blake runs into, with none of them depicts with any exaggeration.
Dave Johns is a lovingly understated Daniel Blake that will have you weeping silent tears rather that breaking down in an emotional outburst. Hayley Squires, portraying Katie in stubbornly self-contained agony and muted defiance, matches Johns scene for scene in excellence. Briana Shann as the little daughter Daisy shines.