#18 We just watched this on Netflix streaming.You should too!:Kes
The Film: Kes
Hey everyone! I have a confession about this movie…I actually came across it because of the famous manc, Karl Pilkington. He spoke of it once and a while during season 1 and 2 of the Ricky Gervais show on XFM, even cutting himself into the film for a segment of the show.
I think Karl loves the movie so much, as do so many other people from poor segments of English society, because it highlights growing up poor on a council estate in regions of England. An estate, for those of you who don’t know (I don’t know why you would), is publicly funded/built housing in the UK (aka. English projects). Huge amounts of the the poorer population lived in them and still do. Jokingly, Ricky Gervais commented that everything in Karl’s childhood sounds like something out of Kes. He might have been right.
Kes follows a young boy from Yorkshire in the sixties as he struggles with abusive authority figures around him. It also watches him befriend and train a hawk he names Kes. The movie is akin to 400 Blows, another masterpiece released only ten years prior. I think Kes is better, but that is just me.
Why to watch it: It is one of the best kids movies, ever.
Kes is a “slice of life” story. It decides to follow a boy, seemingly aimlessly, and just watches how he gets on with his life. It reminded me a lot of the way Ramin Bahrani constructs a story. We watch the abuses Kes has to endure by his family, his school, his friends, and wonder how it is that he endures. We watch as Casper explains to an audience of children, who seem genuinely engaged, that he has been training a hawk. There is no swelling of music; no obvious character arc. We assume he has felt pride for the first time, but there is not “evidence” of this emotion. The film expects the people watching will see that despite all these terrible things and terrible people, Casper has found a talent. In maybe the greatest child performance of all time, David Bradley creates a character who could have been bathetic, but instead, is transparent. Casper seems to be using the puppy dog look as a tool, perhaps even a weapon. Not as true emotion to be pitied. Bradley has the subtlety of a true genius and in the film’s last scene I can’t recall feeling more touched by a movie.
Pay attention to this: subtlety subversive
How can a movie this quiet, be so angry? I wanted to grab every teacher or abusive family member and scream at them. It made me furious that a society would pigeon hole a child like that. Casper, indeed, has value. He is a trouble maker, but has no role models. He has no one to look up to or to value him. An instructor from his school takes interest in his training, but too little, too late. The film struggled financially because of its ending, but how could any other ending be fitting? The movie is like Billy Elliot in reverse. It is the feel-horrible movie of the century and for good reason. These issues are universal. Ken Loach, the film’s director, was clearly furious about a society that abuses its children, has an inadequate school system, and rejects the value and interest of its youngest members of society. It touched me deeply even coming from a well-to-do middle class family from the suburbs of America. I knew a Casper and I’m sure you did too.
-Collin.
Recent Comments