Kes (1969) which I also love.
even though I've heard very good things about it.... I haven't seen Kes either.
I have just spotted it's on Prime, so it's added to my watchlist. Soon.
Striking while the iron is hot...
I've had an awareness of this film for as long as I can remember. It used to be on telly fairly regularly, I think, and I'm fairly sure I caught a scene or two, but there was something about it that made me think it wasn't for me.
Without remembering specifics, I think I had a notion that it was a bit slow, a bit dated (even then) and a bit twee. The first two aren't untrue, and each of these is a very good thing in this context.
It is a slow film. Very slow at times: at football match goes on forever. But this is why it works. There's a documentary-like realism to the film that's quite unlike anything else of its kind, so that football match captures that feeling of being at a school games lesson with unexpected clarity. I know it's a story with actors , but it comes across strongly that much of it is spontaneous and unplanned. People seem to start a sentence without knowing how it's going to end. They trip over lines occasionally or stop to think about what they'll say next whilst saying "Uh". They talk over one another. And so the dialogue lacks any kind of artifice. Reading up afterwards, I see that many extras were cast in Barnsley, where the film was shot. It shows in the best possible way, and feels very much like a camera was just pointed at random characters as they were asked to say something (and I suspect there's a degree of that going on here).
It's also dated, but this is the film's key strength. It captures a specific era and place. In particular it's a statement on the failings of the secondary modern schooling system. They way it shows rather than telling - allowing the viewer to spend time there and experience its unfairness and brutality, ultimately leaving with a lack of hope - is very similar to the way Alan Clarke would depict the borstal system in
Scum, a decade after this (and, even though Wikipedia tells me I'm wrong, I was convinced that Brian Glover played a sadistic warden in that film, just as he plays a sadistic P.E. teacher here). With teachers bellowing, shaming, hitting or caning, there's a lot here that would no doubt seem unreal to a younger audience. This is the system in which my parents were schooled, but the wheels turn so slowly that much of this is identifiable to me from my own secondary schooldays a generation on from this.
Some of the criticism is glaring. The headteacher being liberal with canings, for instance. There's that scene in which some regulars are queueing for their daily flogging and a timid, much smaller boy comes along with a message for the headmaster for the teacher. He obediently joins the queue, and is forced by the others to hold on to their cigarettes because they will be searched and he won't. After a group berating, the head makes all of them empty their pockets and bellows at this boy for being a hardened smoker, and he has no choice to agree. It's a little comical because of the irony. But then comes the caning, with each boy getting one strike on each palm, and the headmaster refuses to listen to the innocent boy's protests, so he is forced to take the caning but it's afterwards, as the head gives yet more verbal grief, that we see the boy's eyes moisten and tears stream down his face even as he nods compliantly. I don't believe we saw him before this scene, and I don't think we saw him afterwards, but there's something powerful about someone experiencing a horror like this without having done anything to deserve it. Incidentally, the caning appeared to be done for real, and I'm certain this method acting added to the very real reactions we got. I even read something that suggests Loach withheld this piece of information from David Bradley, in which case I'd say none of the boys were expecting what they got.
But there's further nuance with Billy and the other boys, all of whom are pegged as troublemakers, but many of them are probably misunderstood as Billy is. Yes, we see Billy stealing and whatever, but it all makes sense when we see his home life when we see how Billy is ignored by his mother and taunted by his older brother. One of the few things I knew about Kes was that
Corrie's Lynne Perrie played the mother and I was eager to see this. Relatively speaking it's a small part, but she's terrific. The scene where she and her boyfriend are at the social club enjoying a night out is one of the scenes that feels genuinely fly-on-the-wall over and above the others. It's like an incredible time capsule.
Something of note is the Yorkshire dialect. It's incredibly difficult to follow at times and I did ultimately resort to subtitles. I have no regrets there, because there was some funny dialogue I would definitely have missed (shortly after I activated them, came the line from Perrie about her son throwing money round "like a Scotsman wi' no arms", and his retort that she was "as tight as a camel's arsehole in a sandstorm"). It was a little frustrating that the subtitles "translated" some of the phrases (so "tha" became "you", etc.) because my problem wasn't necessarily understanding it so much as picking it up at the same time as understanding it. As with many regional dialects, I found it quite poetic, and it got me reflecting that regional dialects are dying out. The way everyone speaks in this film is today mostly restricted to over Seventies and even then probably in more rural areas. In 2026 regional diversity is much weaker, and it's a shame, because it's the one aspect of this time and place that didn't need to evolve.
Back in school-life, among canings and forced cold showers and grief from the other kids, Billy interacts with kind Mr Farthing... the only teacher who takes the time to get to know Billy, and it's a lovely thing to watch. But it only reinforces how neglected Billy is being in other areas. And don't we wish Mr Farthing was the career guidance teacher. Because the one Billy sees doesn't see him. He perfunctorily asks Billy about his interests and with no immediate response, sends him on his way with a pamphlet. Of course, today, Billy would probably be very well supported (a good thing, of course) and,for better or worse, given a diagnosis. But we're talking then not now, and so nothing changes.
Billy's relationship with Kes is incredible to watch - particularly the scenes where Kes flies with him in the field. But I think it's more poignant today than it was last night. It needs to resonate and it hits harder when one knows the ending. Ultimately, Kes is the only living creature with whom Billy fully bonds, but it goes deeper. Billy understands what a privilege this is, and even articulates it to Mr Farthing.
Billy's original sin was stealing Kes from his nest, and that ultimately caught up with him. But this is what makes it a true tragedy. My only concern with the ending is a practical one:
the clearly very real dead kestrel used after Kes was killed. I know it's a sign of the times but animals being killed for entertainment - even entertainment with a message as strong as this - never sits comfortably.
I'm very glad recent conversations in this thread have prompted me to finally give
Kes an outing. It was well worth the wait.
