The Old Oak

Mining village in North East England

The film, The Old Oak is the story of a village in the North East of England, where the mine has closed, and people feel deserted by the system. Indeed, it has suffered forty years of political and economic disenfranchisement, virtually traumatised by the State. Many young people have left and what was once a thriving and proud community, struggles to keep old values alive while there is growing anger and resentment, plus a lack of hope. Shops are boarded up, money is scarce, divisions over the 1984 miners’ strike linger. The fact that houses there are dirt cheap and available makes it an ideal location for these to be bought and rented out for profit, to give space to newly-arrived Syrian refugees. But the locals are angry at the loss of value to them, of their houses, many bought, after long struggles, as a protection for old age and possible ill health in the future.

T. J Ballantyne and his lifeline,
Marra the little dog.

Pub landlord, T. J., tries in vain to correct the 
errant K which constantly collapses; a metaphor for
The Old Oak which is in a seriously poor state.

Exhausted Syrian refugees arriving in England

The Syrians have lost everything; most do not speak English and know nothing of English life. Their terrified arrival in this poverty-stricken community is greeted with outright hostility, racism and incomprehension. There is still a pub, the Old Oak, run by a former miner, T J Ballantyne, played by Dave Turner, but it is on its last legs, kept afloat by a bunch of disgruntled and opinionated regulars who seem to hate most of their world and all people outside it. T. J. is not a happy man; he is divorced, depressed and his only son no longer speaks to him; he manages to keep the Old Oak going as it 

Yara busy with her restored camera

gradually falls apart, but he is increasingly desperate and broke.

Into this maelstrom arrive the unexpected Syrians, one of whose number, the self-confident and articulate Yara, has a precious camera, gifted to her by her father, now missing in Syria. She loves to photograph the people around her but swiftly meets violent hostility from the locals at a ‘fucking raghead’ taking their photos without permission. Her camera is swiftly smashed, to her utmost sadness. The struggling publican, T. J., a decent man, is horrified and tries to help her; this is the beginning of a slow and careful friendship, but one which also alienates many of the villagers, whose support he needs.

An unlikely friendship develops cautiously between
Yara and T. J.

Ken Loach who directed this film, is one of my filmic heroes and I am one among millions if fans, I think. He always works with screenwriter, Paul Laverty and takes on current issues and stories often avoided by the mainstream. The Old Oak is the third film of painful and unfashionable socio-artistic subjects; his first in the trio, I, Daniel Blake, dealt with searing honesty, the brutality of benefit sanctions and the desperation fueling the rise of food banks; the second, Sorry We Missed You, the serfdom of the gig economy, and this third, The Old Oak, refugees housed all over the country being abused and attacked by locals radicalised by social media and poverty.

Ken Loach
Always, compassion for the oppressed.

While most of the working class in this bereft village behave atrociously, Loach presents them sympathetically; they are seen as much victims of market forces and global instability as the dazed Syrians. Loach is now in his upper eighties and was rumoured to be considering retirement ten years ago but mediocre ideological governments since that time, have challenged and enraged him, inducing this late burst of energy and passion in a surge of socially incisive films of great power. Perhaps his last effort.

Post Script

Loach always tries to use amateurs, not professional actors and most of the cast is amateur, like Dave Turner who plays T. J. He was a fireman not interested in being an actor and lacking any confidence in his ability to be on a film set even! Ebla Mari who plays Yara, is a theatre teacher from the Golan Heights, on the border of Syria. She is culturally and emotionally Syrian and has family there but she has never been. She says, “I am not a refugee; I live under occupation in the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. This film is the first time I have met Syrians who actually live in Syria.”

Local boys envious of the second-hand bike delivered
by T. J. to one of the Syrian girls