Word: loach
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Directed by Ken Loach...
...Limeys have long had a soft spot for Ken Loach; a recent poll of their island's foremost film critics placed Loach's Kes, a tender story of a boy and his kestrel, way up at number four in Best Film of the Last 30 Or So Years. Although few of us perhaps could say what a kestrel is--even though it is totally the coolest, supposedly able to hover Harrier-like in the air--we would do well to follow the Brit crits' lead: though not the best example, My Name Is Joe is another acceptable slice of Loach...
...Name Is Joe basically traces the implicitly painful and Damoclean progress of the recovering alcoholic. It's not like there are regular scenes of stare-offs with bottles, or moments of temptation and ultimate white-knuckled resolve in front of seedy liquor stores next to check cash-ins. Loach instead wisely lets Joe's successes speak for themselves, their very modesty giving them a fragility; at one point Joe's safe wallpapering gig almost spins into disaster when a welfare agent snaps telephoto pics to expose his outside earnings (Joe paints the agent's car). Mullen's performance is ultranaturalistic...
...Loach apparently got some clearing-house deal on 80's American TV movie soundtracks--lotta ominous synthesizer chords ganging up on people onscreen without warning sometimes--but, no worries, don't stay home because of that. Stay home if you're expecting anything other than a couple of needy people, one alcoholic (always recovering), one civil servant, trying to match up. It's rough--not stylized--but real. Subtitles and film quality make it feel once in a while like documentary, but a good one. The comic voice finds vent on occasion, too, fortunately not through concerted effort, soccer uniform...
...movie to see for the inside view on child- welfare problems. Ladybird, Ladybird is. This English drama about a worst-case child-custody scenario may show those who make social policy how hard it is to legislate love, lust, neglect, despair and other real-family values. Ken Loach's film, written by Rona Munro and based on a true story, horrifies and edifies in equal measure...