SSRScientific and Social Research2661-43322981-9946Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty. Ltd.10.26689/ssr.v8i9.15773ArticleOn the Evolution of Proletarian Narrative Strategies: A Case Study of Ken Loach, Aki Kaurismäki, and Geng Junhttps://artdesignp.com/journal/SSR/8/9/10.26689/ssr.v8i9.15773LiaoZixiong2026892026-10-21This paper focuses on the film series of British director Ken Loach, Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, and Chinese director Geng Jun, exploring how the three directors expand proletarian working-class aesthetics and their cultural connotations through their respective cinematic styles. Ken Loach employs a full-bodied realism to open up the depth of the world, integrating the struggles of working-class life into complex real-life circumstances, thereby revealing the violence behind capitalist policies. Aki Kaurismäki, through a minimalist formal aesthetic, uncovers romantic sentiments in everyday life, allowing workers to move toward a poetic redemption through emotional tension. Geng Jun, using a lacerating visual approach, exposes a stagnant society in its boundless desolation, while simultaneously allowing workers to display a reverence for life in their decayed conditions. Grounded in cultural theory and employing textual analysis, this paper examines the stylistic differences among the three directors and argues that, through distinct cinematic rhetorics, they construct different facets and connotations of working-class culture, yet all ultimately converge on a humanistic concern for the human being itself.Proletarian, Realism, Formal aesthetics, Thingness, Expressionist style, Symbolic metaphor
[1] Peng JQ, 2024, The Semantic Field Construction of Geng Jun’s “Cold-Climate Cinema.” Film Literature, 2024(22): 102–109.