It’s a Free World was very easily comparable to La Promesse for me. In this film, I feel like we are seeing the life of the immigrants through the exploiter’s eyes. In La Promesse we see the story through Igor and Assita’s eyes. In It’s a Free World, I feel as we are seeing the story through a character similar to Roger’s eyes. While we feel that Angie starts out being a very moral character, she wants to do the right thing and she wants to do right by her son. However, the attraction of money is too strong for her. Roger does some of the things he does for money, but I can’t really justify all of his actions that way. Angie is a loving mother, and tries to do the best she can for her son, which involves sort of screwing people out of money.
I was rather confused by the ending. Did they just get out of the country and go to the Ukraine and start over? Or were they just visiting to try to get more business? I feel the end was very abrupt and I didn’t really get any closure or more understanding of the situation. I feel like there was a lot more to the story that I didn’t really understand.
The closest scene to La Promesse that I noticed was when Angie calls the police on the illegal immigrants that are working for her. Roger sort of does the same thing, where he makes a deal with someone and he gives them a few immigrants in order to get what he needs. I am not really sure what Angie was getting out of it however.
I think that we see globalization in a negative light in this film. We see the side of the people that are exploiting these immigrants for their own gains. I think it makes it a little more acceptable because Angie is struggling herself and she starts the employment agency for a good reason, but it turns into something illegal and unethical very quickly. I’m not sure if we are supposed to root for her, I think we are, even though she does some bad things we still side with her because of her background.
It’s A Free World is a film about desperation and how easily it can be exploited. In the beginning of the film, Angela is tired and underappreciated, but is in no way in as desperate a situation as the illegal immigrants she will work with. She knows the ins and outs of immigration process and sees globalization as a process that leaves desperate people alone in foreign lands. She sees the mutually beneficial potential of a relationship between herself and the documented immigrants. She is filled with ambition and sees the profitability of the position the immigrants are in. But, ambition is one thing and greed another. Once her business gets going, she finds that she can immensely increase her profits if she exploits illegal immigrants. Which she does, over and over. She, a low-class, pretty, naïve, romantic woman, who was once exploited herself, who tried at first to help those without a job, finds herself being an exploiter. It is because she is such an every-day “normal” woman, that gives this film a sort of hopelessness. It shows how easy it is to capitalize on other people, and not just for bankers or millionaires or presidents, for the average person. But, the film ends with her getting a sort of slap on the wrist to reform her ways. The immigrants she exploited return and threaten her life and her son’s life and Angela promises to pay them back. But, we the audience can not forget all of the shitty things she did to those she was trying “to help.” It is only because of a threat to her livelihood that makes her change her ways. We cannot forget that she had plunged into the moral abyss and profited by it and did not voluntarily recant.
It’s a Free World is a film that puts a young blonde in control of recruiting illegal immigrants for work to employers who only want to pay their workers as little as possible. In the beginning of the film Angie is the one who is taken advantage of by those above of her at work. However, as the film progresses she becomes the person who takes advantage of the immigrants and uses her greed to power over everything else.
Work is hard to come upon and one of the main reasons why people immigrate is to find work and money. This work that these immigrants obtain is jobs that don’t require a lot of speaking fluency of the language where they immigrate to and are easily explained by the employer. The jobs that these illegal immigrants have in It’s a Free World are low paying jobs that work the person hard, for example construction and factory work. This is similar to the first film that we watched La Promesse where the illegal immigrants were working for Robert by doing construction work in and around the building that they were staying at.
Angie is the character who Loach wants the viewer to connect with and is seen throughout all of the scenes in the film. I often found myself to sympathize and feel bad for her misfortunes because of her rude and disapproving father and her ill behaved son. She is just trying to survive and get money to do just that. Even though she was doing all illegal work and trying to get money the wrong way, I still felt for her, like she almost deserved the little money she gets because of her work.
However, I feel that her greed took over all of her emotions and that she just followed that greed without actually thinking through on her actions and what she was really doing. Her greed even took it so far as to get her son’s life in danger by being kidnapped because of her work and greed.
Though It's a Free World focuses on the cyclicality of exploitation and moral decline concerned with hiring illegal immigrant workers, the viewer is torn when analyzing Angie because of the way Rose and her reaction to Angie's actions are depicted. This might be a result of Ken Loach's conflicting ideology with that of Angie in terms of how their relation to global capitalism's impact on our lives.
I would argue that the film attempts to portray Rose as an equivalent to the viewer through her responses to Angie. Because Rose and the audience understands Angie's situation, both are tentative towards the idea of beginning a recruitment agency, but are ultimately convinced. As long as Angie and Rose agree to only work with legal workers and avoid any suspicious activity, the plan seems to be an answer to Angie's desperate situation. Both Rose and the audience follow along with Angie's leadership—throwing judgmental glances along the way—until they both reach their breaking point when Angie reports the caravan site to make room for her incoming Ukrainian workers. Though the scene showcases how Angie has morally fallen from when she helped the same family that she is now reporting, it also marks the point where the viewer definitively no longer supports her actions. Nevertheless, the film forces us to sympathize with Angie once her son is threatened, or at the least hope for a successful future for her son as a result of her actions. Thus, the film's resolution leaves the audience at both ends of the spectrum, though ultimately agreeing that there are evils to illegal immigration labor. Because Angie ends exactly where she begins—recruiting illegal workers in a foreign country—the film ends pessimistically in terms of resistance against the current structure of capitalism.
Yet in an interview with Loach, he comes across as more optimistic when looking towards the future. Discussing It's a Free World, he suggests:
“...people like Angie have lost hope and say, well, nobody gives a shit out there. Our experience of working out there with so many people in different parts of the world is that they do give a shit. And we have to maintain ourselves and encourage ourselves and do what we can within the conditions in which we work” (87)
Loach is right in a sense—people do give a shit—but apparently only about themselves. Everyone in It's a Free World, with the exception of Karol, is acting for personal advantage or gain. Or, more specifically, what they believe they are due. Whether that means work or wages, these characters are looking out for themselves and, only by extension, their families. Though he highlights how the laws of the market are “inexorable” elsewhere in the interview (85), Loach also describes the need for a “collective effort” (87), along “with a planned economy, where production is for what people need, not for private profit” (86). There seem to be Marxist tones to Loach's statement, which might explain his notion of optimism found in the collective will. Still, it's hard to pin down exactly how Loach wants us to view Angie within his rationale. In one sense, she's fighting back against the system (and he admires alternatives); yet she is also creating a smaller network of exploitation that is based on her needs and profit, while ignoring those of others. This is highlighted in her titular phrase “It's a free world,” where she suggests Rose pays the workers' wages out of her portion if she wants to. Thus, the ambiguity of Angie within Loach's ideology finds its way onto the screen and forces the audience to choice a side.
Cardullo, Bert. "A Cinema of Social Conscience: An Interview with Ken Loach."the minnesota review. 2011.76 (2011): 81-96 http://0-minnesotareview.dukejournals.org.library.unl.edu/content/2011/76/81.full.pdf+html
It’s a Free World is a film that showed that exploitation doesn’t only happen to someone who is illegal. At the beginning we saw how the male coworkers mistreated the main character, Angie. She decides to open up her own “agency” when she partners up with her trusted friend, Rose. I couldn’t agree more with Elsa when she posted about the similarity between It’s a Free World and La Promesse. Angie has some similar characteristics as Roger. They both profited from exploiting immigrants. At some point, Angie had a “Roger moment” and does an unforgivable act. Where Roger shamelessly tricked and tried to sell Assita, Angie calls immigration on an impoverished neighborhood where the Iranian family she once help lived. Both films were pretty dreary looking. But La Promesse wins the “depressing” category.
This film showed the exploiter being exploited at the beginning of the film. This was interesting because in a lot of the films we saw, we didn’t see the exploiter be in the same beat. Angie was undermined several times throughout the film. Although she is very savvy with the unemployment and immigration process, she still gets into trouble. Because of her greed, she gets beaten up, threaten, and her son into danger. Exploitation happens at all levels. We usually see it happen to people who are vulnerable like immigrants or handicapped people for example. But Angie isn’t vulnerable at that level. I believe that her ‘vulnerability’ is that she is a young, single mother. It shows that no one is exempt from exploitation. It seems to me that as long as there is someone “higher up” they can exploit someone else in need.
A recurring theme in globalization is the need to survive. The migrant workers desperately seek jobs to sustain themselves and their family. We see time and time after again how exploitation is an inevitable consequence of globalization. It is a cycle that the film makes a point like Chandler posted about the ending scene. Ken Loach leaves a grim impression that this characteristic of globalization never ends. I didn’t find Angie to be totally dislikable in the film. Although her morals are a bit twisted, the film did want the viewer to sympathize with her on a few occasions. But at the end of the film, I didn’t know what to think of Angie. The ending finished abruptly. I felt that there could have still been more to the story.
Like many of my peers, I too began to sympathize with Angie throughout much of It’s a Free world. Simply through the cinematic structure, I believe Loach wishes us to align ourselves with Angie, at least a best as we are able, throughout most of the film. Interestingly, I found myself agreeing with much of what Elsa had stated in her post. And much as she did, I found myself comparing this (in a flipped sense) to La Promesse. Unlike in that film, in which we are sort of seeing the situation through the eyes of those whom are being exploited, I feel in this film we are seeing it through the eyes of the exploiter. This is of course, not the entire case as the film does seem to not totally align itself (at least in expected feeling) of those whom are exploiting workers. In addition, I also found myself agreeing with Elsa in terms of justifiability. Oddly, I could sort of understand exactly why Angie did what she did for her son. This actually brought me back to Contagion in terms of how the CDC director called his wife in terms of telling her to get out of the city. While he may be screwing people over, he felt like he was, in the end, doing the right thing. This brought me to a particular question of if someone else was in the position, would I have to done such a thing? And of course, while many of us will refuse to admit such a thing, I can almost place money on that if we were in such a position we’d do similar things.
But, along those similar lines I found myself figuring and knowing that Angie was exploited herself. And using Kyle’s words, she was trying to help those being exploited, but in the end she ended up exploiting people herself. This particular idea got me thinking in terms of Globalization and the other similar themes which we have discussed in class. In an odd way of stating I found this film explaining that, more or less, exploitation or the more over-encompassing idea of globalization is in-fact inescapable for any class. In the end, when such things are on the line in a sense of what was explain in the film we cannot help but care for ourselves. Oddly, I will blatantly admit that it is a human instinct to preserve one’s self first rather than worry about the lives of others. And as I hate to admit such a thing, I can almost guarantee that many of us will perverse ourselves over our peers.
Chandler's observation about Rose being equivalent to the viewer is intriguing. I would tend to agree with this viewpoint. We, as the audience, sympathize with Angie in the beginning of the film and want justice for the ways in which she is mistreated. However, as the film progresses and Angie's character and motives are revealed, we lose all sympathy for her and have an "ah ha" moment about what this woman is really about when she turns in the families she was "trying to help." We experience this moment with Rose. We share in her journey of realization.
And then the film throws in another twist with Angie's short capture. We do worry for her son and we do think that her punishment is harsh. I see a cycle of exploitation in the film. Angie is exploited, so she exploits. Her illegal immigrant workers are exploited, so they hurt Angie by exploiting her vulnerabilities. It's a never-ending cycle. The film does portray globalization in a negative light, playing on the same themes as "Import/Export." We have desperate people who must leave their own countries for "starvation jobs," as the movie puts it, even if they have had respectable professions in their own countries. It shows the desperation of globalization and current world systems and how people get hurt in the middle of these systems. It's vicious, and it does not end, for the film finishes on another scene of illegal immigrants still being vulnerable to Angie's exploitation.
Out of all the "villains" and exploiters that we have seen in films in this class, Angie is the most sympathetic. Unlike Roger, who hardly gives the audience any reason for sympathy, we can sympathize with Angie at some points. She may be the one globalization "villain" that we can also peg as a globalization "victim." We may be able to see ourselves in her, be able to see what we could become if we fell prey to this system.
At the start of the film Angie seems to possess many of the idealistic qualities we saw in Louie Salinger, and traits we ourselves believe to encompass. For example making a stand against inappropriate coworker behavior (although it could also be argued Angie was not a complete professional per her early elevator exchange with Karol). However over the course of the movie we get to see her character make decisions that many of us would feel uneasy with as outside spectators and feel comfortable saying we would have chosen different (ala Rose’s character). Much like Wexler from The International attested to it is hard to relate to these kinds of situations without living them and sometimes you simply cannot “do it within the boundaries of your system of justice... You will have to go outside.”
The array of illegal workers seeking jobs, and the inevitable clash with labor enthusiasts is in part due to the globalization of the world and the increased travel, exchange etc. Thus this film takes place in the present. However there also themes that transcend time and that are no doubt affected by (even if completely minute) by globalization. Throughout many of the films we have watched there appears to be a common motivation behind the characters actions: protecting their children. In Its a Free World, we see this motivation from both sides of the story. Angie begins her agency and defends her choices under the basis of providing for her son. While Angie’s employees also feel the same and simply want the best for their children but are inhibited by Angie’s actions, as evidenced by one workers asking her "Are your children more important than ours?" Assista, Olga, Okwe, Mitch and even Roger to some extent all made decisions in a relatively infantile globalized world based on the age old notion of protecting your offspring.
More recently in class we have discussed capitalism, communism, socialism etc. and the ways globalization has affected these structures. In the film’s case we are witness to a cycle between undocumented persons who are willing to work for less and the employers who will allow with minimal repercussions Kyle points out when Angie receives on “a slap on the wrist to reform her ways.” In an interview with the TIFF director Ken Loach even has harsh words for capitalism describing it as “Uncle Sam comes in and kills you” and those who disagree are often “ seen as a loony or a lefty or beyond the pale. “(http://news.moviefone.com/2007/09/13/tiff-interview-its-a-free-world-director-ken-loach/). The “success” of capitalism is a contested one with many variables, but I am fairly confident I can derive Loach’s stance from the film and as well as issues that increased globalization produces in a capitalist system. In an attempt to explain partly why capitalism produces just as many horror stories as individual triumphs, Hernando de Sota quotes Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s New York Times editorial, “For much of the world, the marketplace extolled by the West in the afterglow of victory in the Cold War has been supplanted by the cruelty of markets, wariness toward capitalism, and dangers of instability" (2000,p. 2).
Soto, H. d. (2000). The mystery of capital: why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else. New York: Basic Books.
It's a Free World focused a lot on the exploitation many people are forced to succumb to just to survive - something we saw in La Promesse, Dirty Pretty Things and Import/Export. Just like the other films we had a 'villain' who was doing most of the exploiting in order to benefit themselves. This person was portrayed as greedy, heartless and just all around a bad person. In the other films it was always a creepy male, someone who didn’t seem to hold any positive attributes and certainly wasn’t the main character or the person we were supposed to identify with. We always had that “good” person for that, the person who’s eyes we watched the film through – Okwe, Igor, Paula or Olga. In It's a Free World, our villain is not only an attractive young female but also the main character which makes for a different viewing experience. At times I found myself wanting to side with her and rationalize her actions. “She was just doing these things to provide for a better life for her son.” There’s also the fact that others touched on, about how she herself was exploited by those above her at her first job. Yet two wrongs don’t make a right and if something like that happened to you why would you want to do the same to others? Angie manipulates everyone around her – her father, her business partner and friend Rose, Karol and even her own son, Jamie. When Angie is talking to Jamie on the phone and tells him she can’t see him that weekend because she got in a biking accident and changes her story when he catches her lying, she blames it on not wanting to worry him. Angie just manipulates him and everyone around her into feeling sorry for her, yet she has no one to blame but herself for her own bad decisions. We see globalization in the many languages that are spoken, Polish, Farsi, Russian etc. There are people from Iran, Chile, etc. It’s really kind of a melting pot. Again, like we’ve seen in the other films, those who are escaping from whatever circumstances in their home country are faced with even more hardship upon emigrating. This makes me wonder how bad things really were in the country these people came from if they’d choose exploitation in a foreign place, or perhaps these people didn’t know what they were getting themselves into and there isn’t the option of returning.
It's a Free World shows how easy it is to exploit illegal workers in any country. Desperation causes Angie to participate in these illegal activities but desperation also causes these illegal workers to do these jobs for little pay. This movie, as some of my classmates have pointed out, seems to be about exploitation. Everybody seems to be being exploited by someone else; it seems to be a never-ending cycle. We do feel for Angie; she just wants to help the people until her business starts to pick up. Rose seems to act as Angie's conscience which she chooses to ignore. In the beginning of the movie we see Angie being exploited but by the end of the movie we see that she has become the exploiter.
This movie has a very realistic feel to it. It is easy to see how this could happen in a real world situation. The globalization of workers and the exploitation that they experience is similar to what we saw in Pretty Dirty Things but this time we see the exploiters story.
The ending of It's a Free World is frustratingly ambiguous; and ostensibly pessimistic, as Chandler notes. Though upon reflection, I was less interested in the moral ambiguity of the films final moments as I was in Angie's new economic state of affairs. Mainly, she's acquired a debt (or more debt? I can't remember if she had previous debts before starting her recruitment agency.)
Debt in this film isn't politicized as it is in The International. In It's a Free World, we see an economy where these low-level mangers, with not real control over the money supply act as middlemen (and women). We witness an unstable economy that consists of "temp", and "non-contract" work that leads so easily to unapologetic exploitation. Money is always owed, always promised. And we see what happens when those promises fall flat on a professional level. In other words, we see the threat of defaulting debt (and the potential for violent consequences.)
I'm not sure how you can read the ending as hopeful--Angie comes full-circle, but instead of coming round to Rose's way of thinking ("exploitation is bad, no matter the rational"), is seems to have dug in, have gone "further in", as it were. And while she seems hesitant, conflicted even, she has learned the rules of the game and she clearly intends to play as hard as she can rather than challenge the rules themselves.
I suppose an important question is: does the film ever give one the impression that challenging the system is something of which Angie is capable? Is that even an interest for her? Alternatively, is a system properly identified? Does Angie trap herself in an impossible situation? Or was she always trapped?
It’s a Free World was very easily comparable to La Promesse for me. In this film, I feel like we are seeing the life of the immigrants through the exploiter’s eyes. In La Promesse we see the story through Igor and Assita’s eyes. In It’s a Free World, I feel as we are seeing the story through a character similar to Roger’s eyes. While we feel that Angie starts out being a very moral character, she wants to do the right thing and she wants to do right by her son. However, the attraction of money is too strong for her. Roger does some of the things he does for money, but I can’t really justify all of his actions that way. Angie is a loving mother, and tries to do the best she can for her son, which involves sort of screwing people out of money.
ReplyDeleteI was rather confused by the ending. Did they just get out of the country and go to the Ukraine and start over? Or were they just visiting to try to get more business? I feel the end was very abrupt and I didn’t really get any closure or more understanding of the situation. I feel like there was a lot more to the story that I didn’t really understand.
The closest scene to La Promesse that I noticed was when Angie calls the police on the illegal immigrants that are working for her. Roger sort of does the same thing, where he makes a deal with someone and he gives them a few immigrants in order to get what he needs. I am not really sure what Angie was getting out of it however.
I think that we see globalization in a negative light in this film. We see the side of the people that are exploiting these immigrants for their own gains. I think it makes it a little more acceptable because Angie is struggling herself and she starts the employment agency for a good reason, but it turns into something illegal and unethical very quickly. I’m not sure if we are supposed to root for her, I think we are, even though she does some bad things we still side with her because of her background.
It’s A Free World is a film about desperation and how easily it can be exploited. In the beginning of the film, Angela is tired and underappreciated, but is in no way in as desperate a situation as the illegal immigrants she will work with. She knows the ins and outs of immigration process and sees globalization as a process that leaves desperate people alone in foreign lands. She sees the mutually beneficial potential of a relationship between herself and the documented immigrants. She is filled with ambition and sees the profitability of the position the immigrants are in. But, ambition is one thing and greed another. Once her business gets going, she finds that she can immensely increase her profits if she exploits illegal immigrants. Which she does, over and over. She, a low-class, pretty, naïve, romantic woman, who was once exploited herself, who tried at first to help those without a job, finds herself being an exploiter. It is because she is such an every-day “normal” woman, that gives this film a sort of hopelessness. It shows how easy it is to capitalize on other people, and not just for bankers or millionaires or presidents, for the average person. But, the film ends with her getting a sort of slap on the wrist to reform her ways. The immigrants she exploited return and threaten her life and her son’s life and Angela promises to pay them back. But, we the audience can not forget all of the shitty things she did to those she was trying “to help.” It is only because of a threat to her livelihood that makes her change her ways. We cannot forget that she had plunged into the moral abyss and profited by it and did not voluntarily recant.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a Free World is a film that puts a young blonde in control of recruiting illegal immigrants for work to employers who only want to pay their workers as little as possible. In the beginning of the film Angie is the one who is taken advantage of by those above of her at work. However, as the film progresses she becomes the person who takes advantage of the immigrants and uses her greed to power over everything else.
ReplyDeleteWork is hard to come upon and one of the main reasons why people immigrate is to find work and money. This work that these immigrants obtain is jobs that don’t require a lot of speaking fluency of the language where they immigrate to and are easily explained by the employer. The jobs that these illegal immigrants have in It’s a Free World are low paying jobs that work the person hard, for example construction and factory work. This is similar to the first film that we watched La Promesse where the illegal immigrants were working for Robert by doing construction work in and around the building that they were staying at.
Angie is the character who Loach wants the viewer to connect with and is seen throughout all of the scenes in the film. I often found myself to sympathize and feel bad for her misfortunes because of her rude and disapproving father and her ill behaved son. She is just trying to survive and get money to do just that. Even though she was doing all illegal work and trying to get money the wrong way, I still felt for her, like she almost deserved the little money she gets because of her work.
However, I feel that her greed took over all of her emotions and that she just followed that greed without actually thinking through on her actions and what she was really doing. Her greed even took it so far as to get her son’s life in danger by being kidnapped because of her work and greed.
Though It's a Free World focuses on the cyclicality of exploitation and moral decline concerned with hiring illegal immigrant workers, the viewer is torn when analyzing Angie because of the way Rose and her reaction to Angie's actions are depicted. This might be a result of Ken Loach's conflicting ideology with that of Angie in terms of how their relation to global capitalism's impact on our lives.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that the film attempts to portray Rose as an equivalent to the viewer through her responses to Angie. Because Rose and the audience understands Angie's situation, both are tentative towards the idea of beginning a recruitment agency, but are ultimately convinced. As long as Angie and Rose agree to only work with legal workers and avoid any suspicious activity, the plan seems to be an answer to Angie's desperate situation. Both Rose and the audience follow along with Angie's leadership—throwing judgmental glances along the way—until they both reach their breaking point when Angie reports the caravan site to make room for her incoming Ukrainian workers. Though the scene showcases how Angie has morally fallen from when she helped the same family that she is now reporting, it also marks the point where the viewer definitively no longer supports her actions. Nevertheless, the film forces us to sympathize with Angie once her son is threatened, or at the least hope for a successful future for her son as a result of her actions. Thus, the film's resolution leaves the audience at both ends of the spectrum, though ultimately agreeing that there are evils to illegal immigration labor. Because Angie ends exactly where she begins—recruiting illegal workers in a foreign country—the film ends pessimistically in terms of resistance against the current structure of capitalism.
Yet in an interview with Loach, he comes across as more optimistic when looking towards the future. Discussing It's a Free World, he suggests:
“...people like Angie have lost hope and say, well, nobody gives a shit out there. Our experience of working out there with so many people in different parts of the world is that they do give a shit.
And we have to maintain ourselves and encourage ourselves and do what we can within the conditions in which we work” (87)
Loach is right in a sense—people do give a shit—but apparently only about themselves. Everyone in It's a Free World, with the exception of Karol, is acting for personal advantage or gain. Or, more specifically, what they believe they are due. Whether that means work or wages, these characters are looking out for themselves and, only by extension, their families. Though he highlights how the laws of the market are “inexorable” elsewhere in the interview (85), Loach also describes the need for a “collective effort” (87), along “with a planned economy, where production is for what people need, not for private profit” (86). There seem to be Marxist tones to Loach's statement, which might explain his notion of optimism found in the collective will. Still, it's hard to pin down exactly how Loach wants us to view Angie within his rationale. In one sense, she's fighting back against the system (and he admires alternatives); yet she is also creating a smaller network of exploitation that is based on her needs and profit, while ignoring those of others. This is highlighted in her titular phrase “It's a free world,” where she suggests Rose pays the workers' wages out of her portion if she wants to. Thus, the ambiguity of Angie within Loach's ideology finds its way onto the screen and forces the audience to choice a side.
Cardullo, Bert. "A Cinema of Social Conscience: An Interview with Ken Loach."the minnesota review. 2011.76 (2011): 81-96
http://0-minnesotareview.dukejournals.org.library.unl.edu/content/2011/76/81.full.pdf+html
It’s a Free World is a film that showed that exploitation doesn’t only happen to someone who is illegal. At the beginning we saw how the male coworkers mistreated the main character, Angie. She decides to open up her own “agency” when she partners up with her trusted friend, Rose. I couldn’t agree more with Elsa when she posted about the similarity between It’s a Free World and La Promesse. Angie has some similar characteristics as Roger. They both profited from exploiting immigrants. At some point, Angie had a “Roger moment” and does an unforgivable act. Where Roger shamelessly tricked and tried to sell Assita, Angie calls immigration on an impoverished neighborhood where the Iranian family she once help lived. Both films were pretty dreary looking. But La Promesse wins the “depressing” category.
ReplyDeleteThis film showed the exploiter being exploited at the beginning of the film. This was interesting because in a lot of the films we saw, we didn’t see the exploiter be in the same beat. Angie was undermined several times throughout the film. Although she is very savvy with the unemployment and immigration process, she still gets into trouble. Because of her greed, she gets beaten up, threaten, and her son into danger. Exploitation happens at all levels. We usually see it happen to people who are vulnerable like immigrants or handicapped people for example. But Angie isn’t vulnerable at that level. I believe that her ‘vulnerability’ is that she is a young, single mother. It shows that no one is exempt from exploitation. It seems to me that as long as there is someone “higher up” they can exploit someone else in need.
A recurring theme in globalization is the need to survive. The migrant workers desperately seek jobs to sustain themselves and their family. We see time and time after again how exploitation is an inevitable consequence of globalization. It is a cycle that the film makes a point like Chandler posted about the ending scene. Ken Loach leaves a grim impression that this characteristic of globalization never ends. I didn’t find Angie to be totally dislikable in the film. Although her morals are a bit twisted, the film did want the viewer to sympathize with her on a few occasions. But at the end of the film, I didn’t know what to think of Angie. The ending finished abruptly. I felt that there could have still been more to the story.
Like many of my peers, I too began to sympathize with Angie throughout much of It’s a Free world. Simply through the cinematic structure, I believe Loach wishes us to align ourselves with Angie, at least a best as we are able, throughout most of the film. Interestingly, I found myself agreeing with much of what Elsa had stated in her post. And much as she did, I found myself comparing this (in a flipped sense) to La Promesse. Unlike in that film, in which we are sort of seeing the situation through the eyes of those whom are being exploited, I feel in this film we are seeing it through the eyes of the exploiter. This is of course, not the entire case as the film does seem to not totally align itself (at least in expected feeling) of those whom are exploiting workers. In addition, I also found myself agreeing with Elsa in terms of justifiability. Oddly, I could sort of understand exactly why Angie did what she did for her son. This actually brought me back to Contagion in terms of how the CDC director called his wife in terms of telling her to get out of the city. While he may be screwing people over, he felt like he was, in the end, doing the right thing. This brought me to a particular question of if someone else was in the position, would I have to done such a thing? And of course, while many of us will refuse to admit such a thing, I can almost place money on that if we were in such a position we’d do similar things.
ReplyDeleteBut, along those similar lines I found myself figuring and knowing that Angie was exploited herself. And using Kyle’s words, she was trying to help those being exploited, but in the end she ended up exploiting people herself. This particular idea got me thinking in terms of Globalization and the other similar themes which we have discussed in class. In an odd way of stating I found this film explaining that, more or less, exploitation or the more over-encompassing idea of globalization is in-fact inescapable for any class. In the end, when such things are on the line in a sense of what was explain in the film we cannot help but care for ourselves. Oddly, I will blatantly admit that it is a human instinct to preserve one’s self first rather than worry about the lives of others. And as I hate to admit such a thing, I can almost guarantee that many of us will perverse ourselves over our peers.
Chandler's observation about Rose being equivalent to the viewer is intriguing. I would tend to agree with this viewpoint. We, as the audience, sympathize with Angie in the beginning of the film and want justice for the ways in which she is mistreated. However, as the film progresses and Angie's character and motives are revealed, we lose all sympathy for her and have an "ah ha" moment about what this woman is really about when she turns in the families she was "trying to help." We experience this moment with Rose. We share in her journey of realization.
ReplyDeleteAnd then the film throws in another twist with Angie's short capture. We do worry for her son and we do think that her punishment is harsh. I see a cycle of exploitation in the film. Angie is exploited, so she exploits. Her illegal immigrant workers are exploited, so they hurt Angie by exploiting her vulnerabilities. It's a never-ending cycle. The film does portray globalization in a negative light, playing on the same themes as "Import/Export." We have desperate people who must leave their own countries for "starvation jobs," as the movie puts it, even if they have had respectable professions in their own countries. It shows the desperation of globalization and current world systems and how people get hurt in the middle of these systems. It's vicious, and it does not end, for the film finishes on another scene of illegal immigrants still being vulnerable to Angie's exploitation.
Out of all the "villains" and exploiters that we have seen in films in this class, Angie is the most sympathetic. Unlike Roger, who hardly gives the audience any reason for sympathy, we can sympathize with Angie at some points. She may be the one globalization "villain" that we can also peg as a globalization "victim." We may be able to see ourselves in her, be able to see what we could become if we fell prey to this system.
At the start of the film Angie seems to possess many of the idealistic qualities we saw in Louie Salinger, and traits we ourselves believe to encompass. For example making a stand against inappropriate coworker behavior (although it could also be argued Angie was not a complete professional per her early elevator exchange with Karol). However over the course of the movie we get to see her character make decisions that many of us would feel uneasy with as outside spectators and feel comfortable saying we would have chosen different (ala Rose’s character). Much like Wexler from The International attested to it is hard to relate to these kinds of situations without living them and sometimes you simply cannot “do it within the boundaries of your system of justice... You will have to go outside.”
ReplyDeleteThe array of illegal workers seeking jobs, and the inevitable clash with labor enthusiasts is in part due to the globalization of the world and the increased travel, exchange etc. Thus this film takes place in the present. However there also themes that transcend time and that are no doubt affected by (even if completely minute) by globalization. Throughout many of the films we have watched there appears to be a common motivation behind the characters actions: protecting their children. In Its a Free World, we see this motivation from both sides of the story. Angie begins her agency and defends her choices under the basis of providing for her son. While Angie’s employees also feel the same and simply want the best for their children but are inhibited by Angie’s actions, as evidenced by one workers asking her "Are your children more important than ours?" Assista, Olga, Okwe, Mitch and even Roger to some extent all made decisions in a relatively infantile globalized world based on the age old notion of protecting your offspring.
More recently in class we have discussed capitalism, communism, socialism etc. and the ways globalization has affected these structures. In the film’s case we are witness to a cycle between undocumented persons who are willing to work for less and the employers who will allow with minimal repercussions Kyle points out when Angie receives on “a slap on the wrist to reform her ways.” In an interview with the TIFF director Ken Loach even has harsh words for capitalism describing it as “Uncle Sam comes in and kills you” and those who disagree are often “ seen as a loony or a lefty or beyond the pale. “(http://news.moviefone.com/2007/09/13/tiff-interview-its-a-free-world-director-ken-loach/). The “success” of capitalism is a contested one with many variables, but I am fairly confident I can derive Loach’s stance from the film and as well as issues that increased globalization produces in a capitalist system. In an attempt to explain partly why capitalism produces just as many horror stories as individual triumphs, Hernando de Sota quotes Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s New York Times editorial, “For much of the world, the marketplace extolled by the West in the afterglow of victory in the Cold War has been supplanted by the cruelty of markets, wariness toward capitalism, and dangers of instability" (2000,p. 2).
Soto, H. d. (2000). The mystery of capital: why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else. New York: Basic Books.
It's a Free World focused a lot on the exploitation many people are forced to succumb to just to survive - something we saw in La Promesse, Dirty Pretty Things and Import/Export. Just like the other films we had a 'villain' who was doing most of the exploiting in order to benefit themselves. This person was portrayed as greedy, heartless and just all around a bad person. In the other films it was always a creepy male, someone who didn’t seem to hold any positive attributes and certainly wasn’t the main character or the person we were supposed to identify with. We always had that “good” person for that, the person who’s eyes we watched the film through – Okwe, Igor, Paula or Olga. In It's a Free World, our villain is not only an attractive young female but also the main character which makes for a different viewing experience.
ReplyDeleteAt times I found myself wanting to side with her and rationalize her actions. “She was just doing these things to provide for a better life for her son.” There’s also the fact that others touched on, about how she herself was exploited by those above her at her first job. Yet two wrongs don’t make a right and if something like that happened to you why would you want to do the same to others? Angie manipulates everyone around her – her father, her business partner and friend Rose, Karol and even her own son, Jamie.
When Angie is talking to Jamie on the phone and tells him she can’t see him that weekend because she got in a biking accident and changes her story when he catches her lying, she blames it on not wanting to worry him. Angie just manipulates him and everyone around her into feeling sorry for her, yet she has no one to blame but herself for her own bad decisions.
We see globalization in the many languages that are spoken, Polish, Farsi, Russian etc. There are people from Iran, Chile, etc. It’s really kind of a melting pot. Again, like we’ve seen in the other films, those who are escaping from whatever circumstances in their home country are faced with even more hardship upon emigrating. This makes me wonder how bad things really were in the country these people came from if they’d choose exploitation in a foreign place, or perhaps these people didn’t know what they were getting themselves into and there isn’t the option of returning.
It's a Free World shows how easy it is to exploit illegal workers in any country. Desperation causes Angie to participate in these illegal activities but desperation also causes these illegal workers to do these jobs for little pay. This movie, as some of my classmates have pointed out, seems to be about exploitation. Everybody seems to be being exploited by someone else; it seems to be a never-ending cycle. We do feel for Angie; she just wants to help the people until her business starts to pick up. Rose seems to act as Angie's conscience which she chooses to ignore. In the beginning of the movie we see Angie being exploited but by the end of the movie we see that she has become the exploiter.
ReplyDeleteThis movie has a very realistic feel to it. It is easy to see how this could happen in a real world situation. The globalization of workers and the exploitation that they experience is similar to what we saw in Pretty Dirty Things but this time we see the exploiters story.
The ending of It's a Free World is frustratingly ambiguous; and ostensibly pessimistic, as Chandler notes. Though upon reflection, I was less interested in the moral ambiguity of the films final moments as I was in Angie's new economic state of affairs. Mainly, she's acquired a debt (or more debt? I can't remember if she had previous debts before starting her recruitment agency.)
ReplyDeleteDebt in this film isn't politicized as it is in The International. In It's a Free World, we see an economy where these low-level mangers, with not real control over the money supply act as middlemen (and women). We witness an unstable economy that consists of "temp", and "non-contract" work that leads so easily to unapologetic exploitation. Money is always owed, always promised. And we see what happens when those promises fall flat on a professional level. In other words, we see the threat of defaulting debt (and the potential for violent consequences.)
I'm not sure how you can read the ending as hopeful--Angie comes full-circle, but instead of coming round to Rose's way of thinking ("exploitation is bad, no matter the rational"), is seems to have dug in, have gone "further in", as it were. And while she seems hesitant, conflicted even, she has learned the rules of the game and she clearly intends to play as hard as she can rather than challenge the rules themselves.
I suppose an important question is: does the film ever give one the impression that challenging the system is something of which Angie is capable? Is that even an interest for her? Alternatively, is a system properly identified? Does Angie trap herself in an impossible situation? Or was she always trapped?