After just returning
from a multi-cinema simultaneous exhibition of the new Ken Loach Documentary I
feel like I have just experienced two very different films: One was a nostalgic documentary about the
post-war period that was made mostly of stock footage and interviews, and the
other was a socialist party political broadcast making the historical case that
Clement Attlee has been unfairly forgotten and Margaret Thatcher is the source
of all of our contemporary social problems (from drugs to ipods!).
The documentary is shot
in black and white to match the stock footage of the time, and the narrative
such as there is in a factual film, is played out chronologically and split
into two chapters. The film starts with
the nightmare of the 1930s poverty and unemployment before introducing the key
players that helped the economic reprise of the ‘40s: Prime Minister Clement
Atlee and Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the NHS. These two men are shown as visionaries
reacting against the tyrannical status-quo of Winston Churchill and the
conservative party. The film then has a
crucial turning point as Thatcher arrives (to boos on and off screen) and the
utopian ideals of the Marxists gives way to the corporate, brutal isolation of
the Neoliberals. As this crescendo rises
and falls the focus of the film moves from the NHS to include the mining
industry, the railways, the utilities (gas, electric and water) and Royal Mail.
The film is undeniably
coherent in providing a socialist narrative of the last 70 years: World War II left the nation economically
exhausted, so the spirit of the people and the infrastructure that existed to
serve the war effort was nationalised to create an efficient manufacturing industry
capable of creating enviable employment levels and serving exports to Europe
and elsewhere. Meanwhile, standards of
living improved and workers got better representation in the workforce, but not
exactly ownership of the means of production.
This lasted until Maggie came along and systematically dismantled this
infrastructure in order to create a more ‘free’ society that encouraged private
ownership and entrepreneurism. Cue
footage of lots of smug looking bankers to be demonised. I imagine that the people who got upset at
Danny Boyle for his ‘radical-leftist’ Olympic games opening ceremony would
explode with rage when watching this film.
Yet I basically believe
in that narrative and did so before seeing this film. I believe that the state has been
fundamentally changed since Thatcher’s premiership, and although I am not part
of a working-class labour movement, I believe that workers should benefit from
higher standards of employment and a large social safety net. Everyone in the cinema with me seemed to
believe that, and did so before they entered the room. So who is this film for…? The problem to me is that the only people who
are going to go and see a black and white postwar documentary (with a Q&A
with the director) on a Sunday afternoon already believe this narrative.
I praise Loach for what
he is doing, and I feel that it could be an important film. I also dislike the current crop of
Conservatives for their misdirection (and the current Labour party have no link
at all to ‘The Spirit of ‘45’) and
can only wish that some of them would sit down and watch this film just to hear
them defend their policies in the face of it.
I also wish that there were more of an appetite for films like this
outside of the (albeit well-meaning) left-wing middle-class bubble – but maybe I watched it at the
wrong cinema…
Lets just hope that the Marxist Radicals at the BBC air it one day (Christmas?!) and then everyone who reads the Daily Express will collectively lose their minds at the sight of governments trying to look after people and pay them fairly...
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