I, Daniel Blake ends with a heartfelt, heartbreaking declaration of humanity in a world that is quickly losing it. Its titular character is an elderly carpenter who has recently recovered from a heart attack. He's not yet fit for work, but due to circumstances beyond his control, he's deemed fit for work by the state, rendering him unable to collect unemployment benefits. He then sets out to reinstate those benefits, pitting him against the most formidable, obstinate foe anyone has ever faced: the bureaucracy of a national government.
Welfare systems should be designed to make the process easy for people to get the things they need, but instead the opposite is true. The humanity of these systems has been removed, turning the system into something aimed to frustrate people and wear them down, chipping away at them like a wood chipper. Sometimes the system works but it's horribly bogged down. More often than not, good people are left on the streets.
Daniel faces this challenge with his head up high, even though things grow even more desperate for him and the people around him. As a widower, he faces this battle mostly alone, and throughout the film he does not seek pity or charity. His struggle to keep his dignity is the cornerstone of the film, his principles based on a background of carpentry - when something is wrong, all you have to do is fix it. It's seen in Daniel's motif - a fish - whose only wish is to swim free and unabated. I, Daniel Blake is social realism at its finest - where society's ills are exposed through a single beacon of humanity.
***
We Want Short Shorts Short Cinema One 2016 Shorts Reviews
Maria, a short about a family of 22 welcoming their latest child, is relevant, and sounds ridiculous at first when you realize these things do happen in real life. Then the context gets disturbing. Life and death in 10-15 minutes.
Yes Mami's premise is simple, comedic but also very relevant in today's society. If someone wants more progressive roles in performance arts and media, why not, coconut?
Outside is visually cute, and its premise resembles one of the entries in the omnibus film Tokyo! but it puts its own Filipino millennial spin to it. The film is quite nice, though it drags a bit at points. Props to the main actress for making it work.
Buang Bulawan is fairly entertaining, but it shoves a lot of context near the end for the sake of character development. I don't know if the film could have worked as a longer feature (probably not), but we could have developed the relationship between its two antagonists in a different way, instead of relying on flashbacks.
Lope was part of Anatomiya ng Pag-Ibig. It's weird, but it talks about interesting things about the gap between generations and love and hidden pain.
Paano Nangyari ang Hindi Nangyari is even more relevant today ever since we were legally permitted to bury garbage in the Republic Memorial Cemetery yesterday. The aural parallel at the end was a genius move.
Hasa did nothing for me. It has a lot of backstory in the synopsis that isn't in the actual film, and could not be figured out through subtext.
Sandra is like Pepe Diokno's Kapatiran but for girls. It's extremely weird but I found myself liking it for some reason.
Papang is very short and straightforward, establishing a story in 3 minutes that other shorts could not do in 15. The picture quality is not the best.
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