The Spirit of '45 (2013)

Directed by

Ken Loach

Genre

documentary film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 34m

Rated

U

Rating

6.1 of 10 from 25 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary uses archive footage and interviews to tell the story of post-war Britain under Clement Attlee's Labour government. It celebrates the creation of the welfare state, the National Health Service, and nationalized industries, while also showing how these achievements were later dismantled.

nostalgichopefulreflectivesoberingearnesthistoricalcontemplativebittersweet

What happens

The Spirit of '45 is a 2013 documentary film by British director Ken Loach, focused on and celebrating the radical changes in post-war Britain under the Labour government of Clement Attlee, which came to power in 1945. Relying primarily on archive footage and interviews, and without a narrative voiceover, the film recounts the endemic poverty in prewar Britain, the sense of optimism that followed victory in World War II and the subsequent expansion of the welfare state, founding of the National Health Service and nationalisation of significant parts of the UK's economy. The film documents the extent to which these achievements, as Loach sees them, have since been subject to attack in the decades that followed, particularly under the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Loach said that the model for the film was "oral history, with pictures". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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