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| It's A Free World [2007] | ![It's A Free World [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-nN7RNVgL._SL160_.jpg)
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| Artists: Kierston Wareing, Ken Loach
Director: Ken Loach
Actors: Kierston Wareing, Juliet Ellis, Leslaw Zurek
Studio: Pathe Distribution
Category: DVD
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £5.70
You Save: £14.29 (71%)
Buy New from £5.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  (7 reviews)
Sales Rank: 4826
Format: Pal
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Media: DVD
Running Time: 92 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5060002835753
ASIN: B000TQLJH8
Release Date: October 1, 2007
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk Review
iIt's a Free World/i, the latest collaboration from the Palme d?Or winning director Ken Loach, writer Paul Laverty and producer Rebecca O?Brien is a drama rooted in the world of illegal employment in contemporary Britain. The story follows ill-educated Angie, who is tired of being messed around by her chauvinistic bosses at the recruitment agency where she finds Polish workers low paid jobs in the UK. When she walks out of her job, she has a point to prove to all those who know her. Angie begins work in a twilight zone between gang masters and employment agencies in a tale set against the background of flexible labour, globalisation, double shifts and lots of happy, happy consumers. p/p iIt?s a Free World/i was awarded the Best Screenplay at the 2007 Venice Film Festival and Loach and team won the coveted Palme d?Or in Cannes last year for iThe Wind that Shakes the Barley/i, which went on to be his most successful ever UK release. The DVD includes fantastic ?extra? material, including an exclusive Director?s Commentary by Ken Loach.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Neither challenges our collective assumptions nor presents new insight July 29, 2008
This is the second film I've seen recently tackling the hot topics of immigration and exploitation, the other being Lorna's Silence. It's a Free World is a familiar story of economic migrants from Eastern Europe and beyond travelling to the UK looking for peace and prosperity, or just to raise a family in a safe environment. However when they arrive they find themselves at the bottom of the social ladder, living in cramped and often unhygienic accommodation devoid of work or dignity. br /br /The migrant characters were lightly drawn and only one had even a little colour sketched in - almost enough for us to care for him as a person, but not quite. The acting was average and the cinematography uninspiring.br /br /The story of a single mother struggling to earn a living and raise her young son, she works for a London workforce company on whose behalf she travels to Poland to recruit teachers, nurses and engineers to become window cleaners and labourers. When she gets laid off she takes it personally and convinces her flatmate to start an agency with her. They make a go of it, building up a clientele of factories and building sites that will hire casual staff by the hour or day. Their ethical code is ignored at every turn as they exploit work hungry migrants who have to arrive each morning in the yard of a local pub to find out if they have a job that day. This theme was for me the most interesting element, as the girls, who themselves as young British women were struggling to find rewarding and stable careers, chipped away at their own ethics and justified their uncaring attitude towards the migrants by an `every woman for herself' attitude. A thought provoking social observation not unrelated to the themes within Lord of the Flies. This is not quite a descent into barbarism but shows the human instinct for self preservation has not been suppressed within modern civilisation.br /br /I felt that the contemporary nature and honest treatment of the subject went a long way to justifying the Festival invitations and the awards but I'm not convinced that it stands up as a great piece of cinematography. It neither challenges our collective assumptions on this subject, nor presents any new insight.br /
 Be careful: this is a biting Ken Loach January 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
That film has to be seen all over the world. It shows how in our globalized world the migration of people is perfectly organized and managed outside all legality with the accomplice-ship and cooperation of most governments or national services in the western countries concerned by these migrations. Here London, England. The volunteers (!?!) are essentially coming from the European Community (Poland) but also non members states from eastern Europe (Ukraine) and some countries going through a crisis like Iran and Iraq. The human beings are cattle as soon as they put their first toe in the system. They pay heftily for their passage first, just like the Jewish community had to pay for the passage of the Jews who were deported to Auschwitz. Then they will be exploited at two levels. First by the skyrocketing rents they pay for one fourth of a room or one fifth of a caravan. Second they will get some work every morning for the day and with no certitude of anything: no contract, no health insurance, no guaranteed payment of the miserable salary, no guaranteed schooling for the children. Everything is done outside any official declaration, evading taxes and all controls. And no serious service is doing anything to find out and bring things back in line. But the worst part is, though some men are behind this kind of slave market, the main flesh-eating character is a white woman, a false blonde, divorced with an 11 year old son abandoned to her own parents. She has a black associate who will finally drop out when the other trespasses beyond the narrow line between exploitation and slavery on one side and cattle- or even garbage-processing on the other. One day she will call immigration authorities to report a clandestine camp in order to get it emptied for her load of slaves that is arriving on the following morning. The black woman will be replaced and the whole forced-labor merry-go-round will start again and amplify its operation. The only advantage of being exploited by a woman is that young males will have to perform some personal service to the female slave-manager to get work on the following day. A film to be seen urgently. I was divinely surprised by the causticity of Ken Loach I was considering as slightly tamed before seeing this film. He can still bite, the old pit-bull.br /br /Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelinesbr /
Good. January 14, 2008
This is certainly one of Loach's better recent films. I wouldn't say it is brilliant, but there isn't anyone else out there making interesting, challenging and intelligent political films at the moment. br /br /In terms of the script, the selection of the main character is really what turns the film from a boring also-ran into something quite clever. Angie is very much a modern woman - independent, perhaps not too academically smart but certain not stupid and prepared to work hard and ambitious for herself and her son - particularly given the Dad's utter uselessness. Very much one of Thatcher's children, her experience in the workplace is of people screwing her over - so the only way to get ahead is to do the same to others. To do this, she starts up an agency paying `starvation' wages to illegal immigrants. She justifies this to herself as doing them a favour - at least she is getting them employment. br /br /It's a convincing, compelling performance, an accurate portrayal of a modern mindset - socially liberal, but politically only self-interested. It's done well that we both sympathise and revile Angie's behaviour. Without a character as carefully crafted as Angie - this film would be pretty dull and predictable. It certainly allows the film to rise considerably above the average. br /
An opportunity missed November 12, 2007
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Making a female gangmaster the protagonist certainly provides It's a Free World with a complex and challenging perspective, but ultimately lets the film down as we feel no bond with the immigrants she exploits. It's a Free World delivers factually, in the way a documentary might, but fails to deliver emotion in the way a drama should.
The price is right... really? October 28, 2007
An engaging but uncomfortable insight into the fate of desperate migrant workers coming into the UK - those without identity papers are such easy targets for exploitation. No wonder UK consumers in recent years have never had it so good! What difference could trade unions make? How long before these migrant worker catch the British disease of subsisting on benefits?
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