From There, Opinion Diverges

Ken Loach: People don’t go to meet each other so much, and even going to the cinema is reduced because people watch films in their own rooms; the beer is cheaper if you buy it in the supermarket and drink it at home.

Alison Saar: I went to a peace rally downtown with my son and afterward he got these plastic samurai swords and was whacking stuff with them.

Loach: He heard the story of the bus arriving in a village with refugees from the Syrian war who were met with opposition.

Saar: Then there is another one where he is down at Lewis and Clark's feet, like a dog.

Loach: From there, opinion diverges.

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Saar: (Laughs) You know, I don't know, everybody has got something to whine about. I guess the responses could be different, but I don't know. What do you think?

Loach: At home, we tend to go in and out of fashion a bit.

Saar: It goes back and forth.

Loach: Everybody’s paid union rates, but no private cars, no stand-ins, nothing.

Saar: You learn about the sad parts of the story and not just the raised fist and all of that stuff.

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Loach: We didn’t explicitly articulate it at the time but that’s what it turned into: the cameras serving as sympathetic observer.

Saar: Probably it is because the piece is on this campus and it is pretty small.

Loach: It was huge: an extraordinary achievement from nothing.

Saar: Yet one time someone thought they saw a dashiki, and I thought “where do you see a dashiki in all of this?”

Loach: After a few days, two of the Syrian women said they had something for us and brought cakes.