The victory of Daniel Blake over the machinations of power
Not every modern director even boasts in his 79 that he once again took away the main prize of the festival from Cannes - the Palme d'Or. This story is about the British Ken Loach, this time he made a film story about his ordinary compatriot, who nevertheless still needs to look for equals.
The first such prize went to Ken Loach in 2006, when he showed the world a picture of "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" about the Irish riot of the early twentieth century. However, all these prizes in the case of Ken Loach are no more than simple formalities, because even before the first palm branch he was loved by Cannes. He regularly took away the prizes given to him by the international association of film critics, or the ecumenical jury. It's all because Ken Loach takes pictures of what bothers everyone without exaggeration, but what you need to be able to say in such a way that you do not bother to get naughty: about social injustice, about bureaucratic routine, about those thrown to the edge of life. Without exaggeration among the filmmakers, the British, sharply offensive social cinema, Ken Loach is invariably in the forefront. The film "I, Daniel Blake" - a great example of the genre, whose principles are largely dictated by its creator.
Daniel Blake is a simple carpenter who has been conscientiously doing his job for many years and lives so that it is not shameful. However, suddenly his wife dies unexpectedly, Blake has a heart attack, and Blake finds himself in a very strange (and typical) situation: the health workers who deal with his state of health do not very much understand the situation, refusing to grant him a health allowance. There is only the unemployment benefit, which - so it was necessary - he also no one is not going to give: you see, Blake supposedly does not differ diligence in the search for this very work. "Why give a resume if the work is not needed?" - One of those to whom Daniel is forced to put his recommendations. The catch is that none of those who come up with this system will not answer this question.
Another question - "What to do?" - sounds, it seems, equally melancholy, in whatever point of the world it has been asked. One and a half hours of the film, we will follow the attempts of the miserable carpenter to fight the system; these attempts are shown surprisingly sincerely, without denominations.
"They will torment you, they will mock, so many just give up," - without hesitation in the expressions in which he clings to the truth, says Blake's neighbor nicknamed China, an unlucky trader sneakers. However, for Blake to lose his self-esteem - this is a real death, as well as to see the suffering of a young single mother with two children, Cathy, whom he met in the queues of the social center.
Blake that there is strength resists the bureaucratic machine, whose main task for him, in general, is obvious: throw it out of the system - that is the ultimate goal. In place of Blake, the next hunter sits next to justice, to which, according to Ken Loach, if very unlucky, you cannot even get there. However, the more life affirming is the finale, in which the words of the fighter for the truth are pronounced post factum over the body in the church, ready for burial. The words that everyone is not just a checkmark on paper is not just a cell among a million others. Moreover, every time someone embarks on the path of struggle, no matter how foolish and knowingly doomed to a bitter failure, he did not seem - this is the triumph of the individual over the machine of power in any particular manifestation of it.