IT’S A FREE WORLD

UK, 2007, 96 minutes, Colour.
Kiersten Wareing, Juliet Ellis, Leslaw Zurek, Joe Siffleet, Colin Caughlin.
Directed by Ken Loach.

Ken Loach is back in his familiar world of current problems in the United Kingdom. As usual, he makes strong comments and offers a critique. With his collaborator of the last ten years or more, Paul Laverty, Loach looks at the situation of migrants, especially from Poland and Eastern Europe, their easier access to Britain on tourist or student visas, their looking for any kind of work (often below their skills and talents), their being ripped off by recruitment companies, factory and business owners and the struggles for many to support families.

Loach has often been accused of preaching. In a way, he does. But, he does it through narrative and characters. This is very true of It's a Free World.

The film opens with interviews in Katowice, Poland, with so many men and women, of all ages, wanting to get work. Angela is doing the interviews with the aid of translators. She continues this interviewing in London but falls foul of her bosses whom she accuses of tricking clients. She is fired. However, at 33, looking after her 11 year old son who is having problems at school and lives with her parents, she decides to set up her own business with her flatmate, Angie and Rose's Recruitment Agency.

Angie (a completely convincing performance from Kierston Wareing ) is nothing if not enterprising, despite the constant wariness from Rose, apprehensive about whether they are staying within the law). She is soon up and running, with a centre, digs for workers (which brings in money), visits to bosses and sending groups out to work. It is still exploitative but she tries to do her best by people, especially an Iranian man without papers whose family she helps with accommodation.

But, inevitably she falls foul of bosses who don't pay, angry workers who need their money - and her father's disapproval and concern for her son. When she goes too far with some illegals, even Rose has had enough.

Loach is perhaps a touch more optimistic in this film insofar as Angie has learnt hard lessons. On the other hand, the exploitation continues. Loach knows the problems and highlights them and is condemnatory of exploiters. He also shows the frustrations of the migrant workers. But, given the situations, he suggests that if some of the agents took a more moral stance, the workers would benefit. (For a companion film which is much more pessimistic, Nick Bromfield's Ghosts can be recommended.) A SIGNIS commendation at the 2007 Venice Film Festival.

1.Forty years of work by Ken Loach? His social concern, social realism, social comment and critique? This film in his canon?

2.The seamier and darker side of London? Authentic, real, the streets and the bars, the warehouses and factories? Poland and the Ukraine? The visual style, naturalistic? The score?

3.The title and its irony? A free world for whom?

4.The introduction, the Poles, Katawice, the many applications, passing of money, skills and non-skills, hopes, references, visas, the build-up to the journey to the UK? The tourist visa or the student visa? What prospects?

5.Angie and her work, the questions, the translators? The meeting with Karol? Her doing the same work in the UK, the various jobs, appointments, the clashes with her bosses, the hard and demanding attitude towards the applicants? Her fight with the bosses, prepared to file a complaint, getting the sack?

6.Angie and her character, her age, thirty-three, her husband departed, bringing up Jamie by herself, with the help of her parents? A succession of jobs? Her outlook? The restaurant and the bar, the sexual harassment of the men, her meeting Karol, the relationship with him? A woman of enterprise, her decision to form her own company, prepared to take the risks, the issues of law, her good intentions and motivations? Rose and the apartment, her urging Rose to work with her? Sharing, always persuading Rose to go on? Geoff and the pub courtyard? The deal?

7.The setting up of the company, Angie and her skills, Rose and her fears? The know-how, getting the motorbike, visiting the owners and the managers, meeting the workers? Allotting them jobs, the vans? Visiting the factories, seeing the lazy workers? The issue of those without documents? Her refusal? The man from Iran, later seeing him, giving him a lift, meeting his family, their hardships, their story of persecution and publication of books in Iran, the option of staying in the UK without papers or going to Iran and the husband in prison? Her bringing them in overnight? Getting the caravan? Her later harshness – and seeing the children, urging them to leave? Trying to do the right thing but skirting the law?

8.Jamie, his age, relationship with his mother, breaking the boy’s jaw at school, the discussions with the principal, sullen and silent, his grandfather’s presence at the interview, his anger with the boy, his story of being bullied? Angie and her relationship with her parents, her father being kindly but yet disapproving of what she was doing? Her mother and her argumentativeness? The father and the old ways? Promising Jamie to be with him? Her being bashed and ringing to avoid the meeting? The custody meeting, the questions, answers, Jamie and his being reassured by the kindly woman? At home, the pizza, watching Dog Soldiers on the television, Jamie disappearing, Angie frantic, the search, the Poles coming and terrorising her, taking the money? Jamie’s return – and just thinking he had a police interrogation?

9.Angie and Karol, his doing translation work, the sexual relationship? His decision to return to Poland? Angie and her buying the flats, the income from the workers? The workers, tough, wanting any kind of work? Derek, the issues of payment, his being bashed, the cheques bouncing? Angie having to handle it, the revolt of the workers? Her being tackled and kicked in the street? Yet with Rose, the prospect of the new office? Bringing in Ukrainians, without documents? Wanting the caravan park, ringing Immigration, Rose and her dismay? Warning the kids and the others to leave?

10.The character of Rose, as a friend, their relaxations at the pub, the men coming home? Dances? Rose and her continued scruple? Concern, the money? The final straw with Angie’s behaviour towards the people in the caravan park?

11.The attack in the house, the men wanting justice, taking the money?

12.Angie and her starting again, with Rose, going to the Ukraine – the same group of applicants, the same kinds of jobs? Would she be ethical for the future?

13.The topical nature of the film, the situation in the UK and in Europe with migrants from eastern Europe, the workers, legal and illegal? A critique of this situation and human traffic for 2007?