In an interview ahead of the Cannes Film Festival premiere of The Old Oak in May, Ken Loach declared that his 26th feature could well be his last. It was getting increasingly difficult to make films at his advanced age, the 87-year-old British director told The Hollywood Reporter.
However, the publication noted that Loach has threatened retirement in the past, only to roll out yet another movie. Loach’s long-time writing collaborator, Paul Laverty, added in the interview that Loach might consider directing a documentary next.
Other octogenarian directors who have been at work this year alone include 88-year-old Shyam Benegal (Mujib: The Making of a Nation), 86-year-old Ridley Scott (Napoleon), 81-year-old Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon) and 84-year-old Marco Bellocchio (Kidnapped).
Ninety-one-year-old Clint Eastwood is shooting Juror No. 2. Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira, who died in 2015 at the age of 106, made his final movie, Gebo and the Shadow, in 2012.
It’s fitting then that The Old Oak is about the passage of time. Loach’s moving drama will be screened at the International Film Festival of Kerala (December 8-15). Loach’s movies are a favourite at this annual event, with his longstanding themes on the importance of worker’s movements, how socialism can be used to address injustice and the poetry of ordinary lives finding resonance among the politically astute Thiruvanathapuram crowd.
The 113-minute film is set in the north-east of England in 2016. Tensions between old-time County Durham residents and Syrian refugees bubble over at that very English institution, the titular pub.
The Syrian families arrive in County Durham to a rude welcome. Tommy Joe, The Old Oak’s owner, isn’t among the hecklers asking, “What’s next? Building a mosque?” TJ, as he is known, sees not stereotyped invaders but a proud people forced to flee their homes.
TJ befriends one of the Syrians, the talented photographer Yara (Ebla Mari). What is for TJ a simple act of decency – welcoming strangers into his backyard – is seen as a betrayal by the pub regulars who mourn the changed dynamic at The Old Oak, “the one place in the village where we can be ourselves”. Their response is understandable: they are angry at Country Durham being treated as a dumping ground for policies made in faraway London.
Paul Laverty’s screenplay finds interesting parallels between the Syrians and the locals. Both have, to vastly different degrees, suffered from systemic neglect. A once-proud mining town with a strong trade union culture, County Durham has been hollowed out by budget cuts over the decades. Apart from being a watering hole, The Old Oak is also the last community space left.
Shuttered homes are being snapped up by speculators. A donation of a bicycle to Yara’s sister draws an angry rebuke from a local boy: what about us, he asks.
When Yara, speaking of her homeland, says “We tried to build something new, something beautiful and now look at us. Thrown to the wolves,” she could well be commenting on Country Durham itself.
Loach’s films are better known for their empathy for marginalised communities and sharply political debates than aesthetically pleasing compositions or virtuoso performances. Cinematic truth that is inspired by reality must reflect that reality as closely as possible, without manipulation or gimmickry, Loach has said throughout his career.
The power that lies in plainness has often resulted in non-actors being cast in prominent roles.
In The Old Oak, Dave Turner, a former fire fighter who had minor roles in Loach’s I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You, plays TJ with the kind of understanding that can only come from personal experience.
The film is unvarnished in its shot-taking, crystal-clear about its politics, and strangely hopeful about the power of solidarity. There’s a directness to the speech patterns that articulates complex social realities.
A sequence in which the locals participate in a march to commemorate labour movements links their concerns with the rest of the world. If this exploration of the things that have been lost as well as the things that nevertheless last is indeed Loach’s last hurrah, it’s a great way to bow out.
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