Days of Hope

Essentially four full-length films, conceived and screened as a TV series in 1975, this is one of Loach's finest achievements - and the crowning glory of his long collaboration with writer Jim Allen. Four episodes, '1916', '1921', '1924' and '1926' trace the varying fortunes of a Yorkshire working class brother and sister, Ben and Sarah Matthews, as he joins up in the Great War, discovers Communism and campaigns during the General Strike and she, initially the most radical and engaged of the two, marries a MP and watches his values dilute while compromising with the government and union leaderships. Many of Loach's recurring interests are here, especially the perennial question of why the left was unable to seize the moment. Angry, austere and shocking, it's historical drama at its best.