Paul, Mick e gli altri

I was lucky to see during the festival of Venice in Milan this very recent film from the good "social" director Ken Loach.

A group of friends in 1995 work in the Yorkshire for the ex-state owned: British Rail, which meanwhile has been completely fragmented in a tremendous number of small private companies that compete one against the other in order to be more competitive and gain the different bids. This situation leads the whole structure of each private company to a very profitable organisation offering a very poor service that has to save money from any single item of the fixed/variable costs structure of the economic statement.

Loach this time points out the lost of the social benefits of the labour class in a blackmail black and white situation where, if they want to get the job, they have to leave with these conditions which do not guarantee any type of social and physical safety to the worker.

It is not by chance that England has been the frame of several train accidents during the last years.

Unions are getting weaker and weaker and the so called "trouble makers" are led to leave the companies. The whole film is nicely viewed with some very fine, pretty uncommon in previous Loach's films, British humour. The scene where the supervisor has to read to the workers the message from the top management of productivity and their new rights is hilarious and superbly performed.

Rating: 6/10

I saw the movie today. It is good to know that while in Hollywood the so called entertainment industry wants to send our minds and conscious into sleep, comes a real humanist film maker and serves as a voice of society in a crisis, of real people like all of us that deal with problems that surface everywhere in the world. How men can survive and remain human and moral while fighting in vain in every establishment, including ones that suppose to help the individual. It is not just a Marxist manifesto but rather a compassion, loving, caring and worried look at a group of people that want to survive in a world that is changing rapidly economically and morally. You'll laugh with them, get frustrated with them and feel pity for them when they make the wrong choice (if such a thing can be defined). As always with Loach's films, it's so reliable that you immediately feel that the characters are a part of your life and there are no actors and no movie - just a look at familiar people who struggle to keep their jobs against a system that doesn't really care for its human resources and by that hurt them and herself. It is really touching and heart-tearing as much as loving with even quite a lot bits of humor which make it more credible. A real must!

This is by no means a movie to be seen for pure entertainment,. This is a REALISTIC movie, so those looking for kicks stay away. Otherwise you will be so disappointed.

I like this movie so much, especially since is the type of movie Hollywood would NEVER make. It sharply portraits how bad working conditions have gotten over the years (which is something I have witnessed firsthand). Treating people like dirt and firing them without a reason have become an end it itself.

Watching this film takes you to the core of what's going on at most workplaces, which obviously won't delight those who think life is pretty, because it ain't. Put your feet on the ground and search for that beauty - you are not going to find it in the treatment workers are getting anywhere. This is the real world, people, whether we like it or not.

While seeing this movie, never did I feel I was in the cinema. I could relate to what the characters were going through.

Of course the movie has no happy end, but if it did would be unreal.

10/10.

Saying frankly, I did not enjoy, nor being moved by the movie. The story is neither dramatic nor exciting. The lead character is not well defined and thus easy to confuse the audience. After watching it, being little bit disappointed, I went out to walk my dog, but the movie occupied my thought even after I came home. This is a story in railway workers in the UK, however I could see similar situation in Japan too. In Japan, many companies are gradually recovering from serious downfall. But during the process of profit recovery, companies have replaced fixed-cost employees by variable cost contract workers. As a result, the lifetime employment system has collapsed, and the power of the unions, the members of which are employees only, have been eroding. At the same time, number of contract workers, who do not have systematic training and skills building, has increased. In this trend the gap between peoples of high wages and low wages are becoming wider. British society has been many years the forerunner in the world of winning the rights of workers. But these rights are now too easily forgotten under the pressure of global economy. This is a social crisis in longer term. At least this movie has succeeded to portray this crisis.

Ken Loach is known for his political/social films. This one is no different. The story of the consequences of the privation of British Rail is told through the eyes of the simple workers. They are the one who suffer the most from it. Loach is very sympathetic to them and doesn't hide it. In his opinion they are the "good guys". He tells their story with humor which draw us to their side. There is nothing wrong about that because he is right, they are the good guys.

Loach is also cleverly draw the impact privation have on the safety matters in this case and the unnecessary death it brings. As usual Loach uses a lot of non-professional actors and they do a very good job and we feel very close to them because they seem real and the problems they are facing seem also real.

This is a good film. No fireworks here, but a solid piece of work. The ending is a bit of disappointment, because it hangs in the air with no conclusion. And sometime all we need is a solid film. Just go and see it.