Synopsis
How the spirit of unity, which buoyed Britain during the war years, carried through to create a vision of a fairer, united society.
How the spirit of unity, which buoyed Britain during the war years, carried through to create a vision of a fairer, united society.
O espírito de 45, L'Esprit de 45, El espíritu del '45, Spirit of 45, O Espírito de 45, The Spirit of 45, 1945년의 시대정신, 1945年的精神, Духът на 45-та година, Duch pětačtyřicátého
Get this on the school syllabus now!
Fantastic documentary feature from Ken Loach which explores in depth the poverty of the 1930s, the war years and just what brought the finest Labour/Socialist government this country has ever seen into power, as well as looking at its triumphs.
Loach elicits intimate talking heads with many ordinary people who are old enough to remember '45 and the years before it, and those whose lives were changed for the better. Their recollections are life affirming, heart warming and often utterly poignant and tragic. What stands out however is their collective faith in a belief that there is always a better way.
Like Loach's dramatic films, there are no fancy directorial or cinematic flourishes,…
Ken Loach returned to his documentary roots in 2013 with this film about the massive social reforms in the wake of the landslide electoral victory of Britain’s Labour Party after WWII. A mixture of archival footage from the era and interviews with the now-elderly everyday people about their experiences at that time, Loach’s take on this is glowingly positive. But there’s no arguing that it was a massive socialist experiment that nationalized major industries and created a heretofore unknown “cradle to grave” welfare state. An important history lesson, and well-done.
British citizens at the time feared a return to the massive levels of unemployment they’d experienced in the 1930s. The Labour Party platform of far-reaching social reforms arising out of…
There is perhaps no greater radicalizing force than seeing what was considered “sensible center left policy” just a decade ago feel like a pinko pipe dream today, and the optimism of older generations in regards to the occupy movements, many of whom gave their voices to this film, and some of which are likely dead at the hands of a further gutted NHS and a pandemic allowed to run rampant by the archons of capital. Hard to put to words how horrible the cheery tone of this film made me feel; it decries Thatcher’s vampiric measures of privatization and austerity, but much of it focuses on the joy and quality of life improvements of working people following the labo(u)r victory…
Until I saw this Rialto DVD on the library returns trolley, the only Ken Loach documentary that I had seen was Which Side Are You On (1984), his TV-length documentary about the miners’s strike. I have seen almost all of Loach’s narrative features over the years and one of the things that I have loved is that he proudly puts his left-wing underpinnings on full display, even in a comedy like The Angel’s Share that he made the year before this documentary.
It is interesting that the footage of the celebrations that marked the end of WWII that Loach uses to start his analysis of the post-war years overlapped substantially with the footage that Julien Temple used for the same…
Ken Loach understanding fully that the easiest way to turn a talking head into something inherently cinematic is to present it in widescreen black and white
Directed & written by - Ken Loach
We hear a lot about the post-war Labour government in these times of harsh austerity. Faced with a colossal structural deficit, a fuckton of debt and a war-torn country, Britain’s greatest administration managed to create the NHS, nationalise the industries, provide people with decent housing, give people jobs and turn a perilous situation completely on its head for the average working man and woman.
Alas, as much as I’m a proper socialist and as much as I hate the Conservative Party with all of my being (I’m not even joking…), something about The Spirit of ‘45 - Ken Loach’s documentary about the post-war reforms and the need for a “return to socialism” in Britain…
Ken Loach's powerful, poignant polemic - about communal goals dreamt of, fought for, won and lost in the postwar period - is at once uplifting and soul-destroying, as the astonishing programme of reforms achieved by Attlee's administration are eroded, picked apart or junked by grasping free-marketeers.
The film also brought home to me how completely socialist ideas are kept out of the mainstream media: it felt bizarre to see people on my TV advocating the renationalisation of key public services - and yet YouGov says that's a majority view in this country.
Occasionally Loach loses the thread of his argument (and the RMT spokesman he chooses is poor), but the diverse selection of left-leaning contributors effectively mix the personal and…
Next time the Tory vermin wheel out that old "well we can't do that, because we don't have a magic money tree" line, remember what Attlee's Labour government achieved after a world war and a great depression and see their condescending statement for the downright lies that is is.
See previous review here
o his chest, but his latest film, The Spirit of ’45 is his most direct advocacy of Socialism yet. Told with a mixture of period footage and monochrome talking heads, the film depicts the political landscape of post-Second World War Britain, and how the newly-elected Labour government utilised the country’s sense of post-war unity to establish a welfare state, a National Health Service and put an end to the poverty of the 1930’s. It is a fascinating snapshot of a period of British history that is often over-looked and the national mood is brilliantly captured in its use of interviews and advertisements of the time. It is no surprise that Loach has made this film in 2013 when the NHS…
Simultaneously extremely hopeful and extremely hopeless - hopeful because it shows what common people can achieve if they work together toward their own interests, putting the dignity of human life over corporate profit. Hopeless because it shows how quickly all of that progress can be snuffed out, degraded, and dismantled. I cried during this documentary, cried because it depicted a world that I can't even imagine existing anymore. A world built on collective action and common purpose, which has been destroyed by greed and individualism. The worst part is that I can't see a better future for us, I can't see a return to the spirit of '45...
It’s so exhausting fighting the same fight for so long.
I cannot express how much I hate the British Conservative Party.