Memory is a very funny thing. I'm sure I have mentioned that before. No, that is not a joke about my own memory. I've always known of Kes, but I had never seen it. It's just always been there, part of British culture that I knew I had to get around to one day. And I expected it to seem a bit dated, a bit rough compared to more modern feature films, but I also somehow remembered it as being such a major work that it made an impact in the mid-1970s, repercussions from it rippling all the way through my childhood. But Kes isn't a mid-1970s work. It debuted in 1969, and was an adaptation of a novel published just one year before, before going on wide release in the first half of 1970. So my memory of Kes, despite having never seen the actual film itself, was already wrong. I did worry when I finally sat down to watch it that I would also be wrong in assuming that it would remain an impactful experience.
That assumption was fine. Kes is quite brilliant, although there have been enough minor changes throughout our society to soften the blow of it slightly. It's the tale of a young boy, Billy Casper (David Bradley), who seems to be killing time at school until he's eventually placed in a harsh and unforgiving manual job that will, if he's lucky, pay him enough to get by and enjoy some time in the local pub. Things change for Billy when he gets himself a kestrel that he aims to train, giving himself something that creates a time out from the continual drudgery of his everyday life. Some may appreciate the fact that he's taking an interest in something, but many may view the development with resentment.
Directed by Ken Loach, who also adapted the book ("A Kestrel For A Knave") with author Barry Hines and Tony Garnett, Kes is absolutely a quintessential Loach movie. He may be credited here as Kenneth Loach, and it may only be his second feature, but this is the typical unflinchingly honest look at people not often given any decent representation in modern cinema. Film is an escape, I get that. It's also equally important that film, like any art, is a mirror held up to society. Loach has held that mirror up for six decades, often showing people reflections that they spend most of their time trying not to notice.
Not every performance here works quite as well as it could, which I suspect is down to Loach aiming for authenticity ahead of everything else, but young Bradley doesn't really put a foot wrong as he portrays a character who manages to be captivating without having to sand off all of his rough edges. Freddie Fletcher is also very good as the older brother, Jud, who can be an idol or a terror, depending on how his day has gone, and you have the brilliance of people like Lynne Perrie, Brian Glover, and Colin Welland filling out the main cast. Astonishingly, this is the first credited film role for all three of those performers, but it's already evident here that they had the potential for greatness ahead of them, particularly a scene-stealing Glover. I would also like to point out one other actor, but am sadly lacking the knowledge of his name. There's one schoolkid who is supposed to take a message to a teacher, ends up being asked to hide cigarettes in his pockets while some other kids are punished, and ends up getting himself in as much trouble as anyone else alongside him. It's a hilarious and infuriating scene, and the young boy plays it brilliantly throughout.
I can see now why Kes endured for so long, and endures now. I thought it was about a boy and his kestrel. It's not. That's just a way to show someone being able to see beyond the life seemingly allowed for them by those in positions of authority. It's about class, it's about an education system that too often works as a placeholder for children being prepared for a thankless life of hard work ahead, and it's about the importance of seizing on even just one, any, opportunity to spark some passion in those who may then be able to strive toward something previously-unseen beyond the classroom walls and industrial work environments surrounding them.
Give it another ten or twenty years and my memory of Kes may be wrong in different ways. I may go back to thinking it's a simple tale of a boy and his kestrel. I hope not though. It's a hard film to watch at times, especially for those who have the personal experience of the working class life, but, like some of the other superb films from Loach, it's a much harder film to forget.
9/10
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