Film Review
Despite his early success with
Kes (1970), British director
Ken Loach had difficulty raising money to finance full-lengths films
throughout most of the 1970s and 1980s. After a brief foray into
commercial cinema with
Hidden Agenda
(1990), Loach was able to make an important social drama that
would effectively re-start his career in the 1990s. That film,
Riff-Raff, provided a powerful
indictment of post-Thatcherite Britain and is considered one of Loach's
best films, a masterful concoction of social realism, drama and satire.
Employing actors who had previous experience of working on building
sites - including Robert Carlyle and Ricky Tomlinson - allowed Loach to
achieve a striking naturalism, which he accentuated through
improvisational acting techniques, documentary-style camerawork and
sparse use of music. Despite its low budget and hasty production
schedule,
Riff-Raff is an
absorbing, well-crafted piece of cinema. It offers a vivid and
honest account of how those at the lower end of the social spectrum
fared after the flawed policies of the Thatcher administration had
virtually wrecked the social fabric of the United Kingdom in the 1980s.
Despite its bleak subject matter,
Riff-Raff
manages to be one of Ken Loach's most accessible films. Along
with the hard-edged realism and obvious left-wing politicking there is
also a great deal of feckless humour. Admittedly, much of the comedy
has a distinctly poisonous edge and is a tad contrived - e.g. a party of
nuns walking into a bathroom to
find Ricky Tomlinson butt naked - but it does provide an effective
counterpoint to the dreary reality of men being sworn at, victimised
and generally exploited on a building site by the vermin that Thatcher created. The sequence in the
crematorium gardens (in which the mourners end up being covered in the
remains of the dearly parted) is the most amusing of any Ken Loach
film, even if it is - er - every so slightly sick. These fleeting
comic asides remind us that even when life
is at its grimmest there is always something to smile at.
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Ken Loach film:
Kes (1969)
Film Synopsis
After completing a short stretch in prison for theft, young Glaswegian
Stevie heads South and finds work on a construction site in
London. His employers take a relaxed approach when it comes to
safety standards - i.e. there aren't any - but the workers don't
complain because they can work under false identities, enabling them to
carry on claiming benefits. Anyone who mucks around or so much as
hints at putting in a claim for more pay or better working conditions
is summarily dismissed. It is the early 1990s, the economy is
depressed and work is hard to come by. Stevie is happy to
have a job and is happier still when he meets Susan, an aspiring
young singer...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.