Kes

There is nothing like education to kill any passion for art or media. How many adults across the country quiver at the mention of Shakespeare due to study or happily throw away copies of Great Expectations or the poetry of Wordsworth. As a younger chap I had to study Barry Hines' A Kestrel For A Knave, and while I wasn't ready to light a match to it or drop the VHS copy of Kes out of the classroom window like many of my classmates I was hardly prophesying it either. I let it wash over me and dutifully wrote a few essays on it.

Years later I watched it with my father, who proceed to spend the duration of the film telling stories of what happened to him similar to those in the film. Stories involving canes, football matches, showers, fish and chips, milk carts etc. And it was only then that I could appreciate the film for what it truly was. The film is such an uncompromising document of working class life in Northern England. The film never shies away from showing the grit and dirt (just look at Billy Casper's fingernails throughout the film), the language and the philosophy of the time. There is no sense of commerciality about the film, nor does there seem to be a direct motive against it. It truly is an individual piece of art.

Not only does the film succeed as an historical depiction of life in the sixties, tying in with the end of the British New Wave but it offers such a delicate and beautiful depiction of escape and hope. This can be seen perfectly in the contrast between vibrant woods and landscapes up against the concrete streets or pumping factories.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSSOVs5xQ77WmcK7Qnhpa3D7w2X_I_eii-Vwuw9q4bGCBQvFzGKUeImqZT8

The European film canon will happily offer Truffaut's The 400 Blows as a seminal piece of work but I feel Kes deserves to sit along side it. Especially for British audiences, who should see how much things have changed (or stayed the same) in just a couple of generations.

So I urge everybody to seek out this film and quietly watch it on your own. Appreciate the subtlety and deft balance between doldrum and inspiration that greets every one of us in our lives.