Not so long ago, Ken Loach seemed the forgotten man of British cinema. During the 1980s, the Thatcher era, he managed to make only two new features, Looks and Smiles (1981) and Fatherland (1986). His best work, it seemed, was behind him. There was a creeping sense that he would never again match the triumphs of Kes (1969) and Cathy Come Home (1966).
At the turn of the decade, however, Loach's filmmaking career revived in spectacular fashion. Since 1990's Cannes Jury Winner Hidden Agenda, the director has scarcely stopped working: Riff-Raff, Raining Stones, and Ladybird, Ladybird followed in quick succession, each shot for less than US$1.6 million and made under the auspices of Parallax Pictures and Channel 4. Last year's Spanish Civil War drama, Land And Freedom was a watershed Loach's first attempt at the historical epic since his 1970s TV series Days of Hope. Carla's Song is a similarly ambitious undertaking. Shot in Glasgow and Nicaragua, it is at once a love story and a lament for the betrayal of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution.
The inspiration for the film came from the real-life experiences of its scriptwriter Paul Laverty, a former Glasgow lawyer who spent much of the 1980s working with human rights organisations in Nicaragua. Set in 1987, it tells of a beautiful Nicaraguan refugee (Oyanka Cabezas), eking out a precarious living as a dancer in Glasgow, and of her unlikely relationship with a pugnacious, kind-hearted bus driver George (Robert Carlyle of Trainspotting notoriety).
The bus driver falls in love with her, but quickly realises she is traumatised by events in her recent past. To help her come to terms with them, he accompanies her back to her home country. Once there, he witnesses at first-hand the bloody sufferings the CIA-backed Contras inflict on ordinary Nicaraguans.
Loach isn't exactly associated with comedy, but Carla's Song, like Riff-Raff and Raining Stones, is enlivened by very funny sequences, many of them involving George's spats with his absurdly bureaucratic bosses. But the film is seldom didactic. People respond to stories, Loach observes, they respond to people's dilemmas and experiences. The two leads show humour, vulnerability and defiance in equal measure in the face of often appalling circumstances. There is also a strong strain of lyricism: Barry Ackroyd's camerawork captures both the mist-draped hills round Loch Lomond and the spectacular Nicaraguan landscapes in equally reverent style.
Scott Glenn's character Bradley, a macho US human rights worker with a chequered past, seems like a latter-day counterpart to the American adventurer Sir William Walker. Briefly (self-proclaimed) President of Nicaragua in the mid-nineteenth century, this maverick has already inspired two movies, Alex Cox's Walker and Festival Director Gillo Pontecorvo's 1969 effort Quemada! (Burn!) which starred Marlon Brando. Unlike Walker, though, Bradley doesn't see Central America as the USA's backyard. He rejects the idea that it is America's manifest destiny to control events throughout the continent, whatever the cost in human suffering.
The logistics involved in filming so far from home were mind-boggling. As producer Sally Hibbin observes, Britain has no trade relationship with Nicaragua. Moreover, there was always a danger that the current, centre-right government would frown on a project that sided so openly with the Sandinistas.
Although there were difficulties with some locations (the Ministry of Education turned down requests to use one of their buildings at the last minute) the filmmakers encountered little interference. To Hibbin's surprise, the government even ended up applauding the film's honesty. The reaction we had from everyone was that making the film was good because it would put Nicaragua back on the map. (Anyone curious about the crew's experiences in South America should check out Marlisa Trombetta's documentary, Ken Loach in Nicaragua, which also receives a screening in Venice.)
Loach has frequently stated that authenticity of experience is what he seeks to capture in his films. His actors are cast not so they can give showy, barnstorming performances, but because they are plausible. Thus, Robert Carlyle (who also starred in Riff-Raff) learned how to drive a bus in preparation for his part while newcomer Oyanka Cabezas took a crash course in English. (Like Carla herself, she didn't quite have time to master the language.)
It's his painstaking, honest approach that makes Loach such a distinc-tive and enduring talent. Krzysztof Kieslowski's remark that I never wanted to be anybody's assistant, but if Ken Loach were to ask me, then I'd willingly make him coffee, perfectly underlines the esteem in which he has always been held by his contemporaries, including, perhaps, this year's Venice jury. Geoffrey Macnab
Prod Co: Parallax/Road Movies Dritte Produktionen/Tornasol
Films Prod: Sally Hibbin
Dir: Ken Loach
Scr: Paul Laverty
Ph: Barry Ackroyd
Prod des: Martin Johnson
Mus: George Fenton
Ed: Jonathan Morris
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Oyanka Cabezas, Scott Glenn
Running time: 127 mins
Int sales: Film Four International
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