2023 drama film directed by Ken Loach, co=written by his usual collaborator Paul Laverty.

Social realism (not socialist realism)

Formalised between the 2 world wars, and especially during the Great Depression, it's a art movement (painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers) that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structures behind these conditions.

But one can trace its origins before, with painters (Courbet, Van Gogh), many writers, photographers like Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans.

Ken Loach

87 years old. He's very prolific and hard worker: he made 28 movies, plus TV programs and a bunch of documentaries. His first movie, "Kes" (that Aurofilm screened about 1 year ago) is usually regarded as one of the most important movies of British cinema and the social realism movies. In a sense, "The Old Oak" is a follow-up of his 2 previous movies "I, Daniel Blake" and "Sorry We Missed You".

Figure of "social realism", inspired by Italian Neoralism. About the "Bicycle Thief": "It made me realise that cinema could be about ordinary people and their dilemmas. It wasn't a film about stars, or riches or absurd adventures".

Arguably he's most successful director in the history of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival with 2 Palme d'Or (The Wind That Shakes the Barley in 2006 and I, Daniel Blake in 2016) and other awards. He also won the Honorary Golden Lion in 1994, and the Honorary Golden Bear in 2014.

Syrian refugees / mines

Millions of Syrians flee from their country during the civil war, around 2016. It is estimated that 6 million people were displaced within the country, 6.7 million left, mostly to Turkey. But countries of Europe also welcomed many of them, and this triggered a vast movement of solidarity.

Ken Loach captures here the struggle of these emigrants, and makes a parallel between them and the people living in places themselves by their own struggles, like in places devastated by the end of coal mining, in the 1980s. Ken Loach: "The area has just been neglected for the last 40 years. Although there’s still the spirit of the solidarity of the miners when they were there, there’s also dissatisfaction and lack of hope."

Who is the victim, who is the aggressor, of what? As usual, Ken Loach delivers a movie full of compassion, empathy, and hope.

Ken Loach: With this film, we wanted to see how we could widen it: can we look at the notion of hope? And where do people find that? What nourishes people to build a decent life together?

These questions might resonate particularly with many of us in these troubled times.