Sometimes I want to look up from whatever I'm doing (usually when I'm staring at a screen) and send up a prayer of thanks that at 81 years old, filmmaker Ken Loach continues to be who he is.
"I, Daniel Blake" ("Watashi wa, Daniel Blake") is the latest in this brilliant and prolific British director's list of titles, and when you consider that it grapples with many of Loach's signature themes — joblessness, single motherhood, poverty, loneliness, the infuriating red tape of benefit systems — within a here-and-now context, it brings up an overwhelming sense of awe.
Loach's outlook has remained fresh, untainted by cynicism, despite the frustrations he still harbors — and he still knows how to be funny. He has turned socialist realism into an art form and very few directors can match the power and persuasion of his craft. At last year's Cannes Film Festival, "I, Daniel Blake" won a triple crown: the Palme D'Or, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Palme DogManitarian Award. The last, which was awarded for his inclusion of a three-legged dog called Shae in the film, he tells me during a Skype interview, is something he was "especially happy about."