Movie Review: It’s A Free World (2007)

Plot Outlne:
Angie may not have much formal education, but she’s got energy, wit and ambition, and she’s in her prime. She’s been messed about in the past and she’s fed up. She has a point to prove. This is her moment.

Angie sets up a recruitment agency with her flat-mate Rose, working in a twilight zone between gangmasters, employment agencies and the migrant workers they place. This is a tale set against the reality of the Anglo Saxon miracle of flexible labour, globalisation, double shifts and lots of happy, happy, happy consumers: Us.

Overall Impressions:
Though in quite a depressive morbid fashion the moral of the story sticks. In a world gone mad, as we all chase for our dreams and riches, people along the way are going to get crushed (sometimes literally), so the question is, how far are you willing to go to succeed? Something else to consider is if and when you reach this success, can you live with the guilt? when is it ‘too much’ ?

With a British contemporary backdrop it is somewhat reminisicent of Macbeth in some ways, in that our hero(ine) is a victim and someone we grow to like, we follow their journey and at some point along the line we feel she’s gone too far, thus now making her the villain of the story. This transformation was forseeable yet still highly effective in the narrative. The script recently won the best screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival.

Strangely, the UK isn’t seeing a cinema release of the film, in fact it’s gone straight to DVD and aired on Channel 4 a couple of weeks back.

The Q&A in a nutshell
Ken Loach has worked in films for multiple decades, it’s far to see he knows his stuff, he was friendly and it was good to see a certain honesty in his answers to questions, much of which was wasted on me. I’m not into politics and frankly, I just don’t give a damned. *cough* That said, it was interesting to hear that one of his previous films was key in changing a law, quite an achievement I thought. Then when quizzed he mentioned that this film simply wouldn’t hit the government radar even though 1 in 20 people of the population is an illegal immigrant because all the parties are focussed on commerce. (& I add understandably so, as it’s commerce that makes an economy, and an economy is unfortunately how a country is perceived to the rest of the world.)

… but yea’ enough of that stuff, what did catch my interest was some of the technical questions with regards to shooting:

The film was pretty low budget, few and small locations et al & he mentioned that if circumstances provide, it’s good to shoot the whole film in sequence, the order the viewere will see it, especially with films where the character is supposed to progress a certain way. This way the first-day jitters and the growing confidence over the days of shoot helps give the character further depth and naturalness. In addition, each actor would be only given their own part of he script, and in parts only a few days/hours before shooting. Too much practise also loses realism. Fair comments inmy opinion, noted *taps-nose*

He also mentioned, he’s not a fan of using cranes, trolleys and all the jazz that most the industry raves about as making their livs a lot easier, most his shots are taken by hand or using an old fashioned tripod. — Well if it works, fair enough, but I’m not in total agreement, maybe just a matter of the things he’s used to.

All in all, though it was a strong film with a message, I must admit this wasn’t really my kind of film. It was painful rather than entertaining to see this transformation in character. Quite a contrast to Weirdsville and quite what I’d feared, at least they eft it to the next day.

Reviewed by Ramchandra