1969 British film
Kes is a 1969 drama film directed by Ken Loach and produced by Tony Garnett. The film is based on the 1968 novel A Kestrel for a Knave, written by the Barnsley-born author Barry Hines. The film is ranked seventh in the British Film Institute's Top Ten (British) Films[3] and among the top ten in its list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.
Plot
The film focuses on 15-year-old Billy Casper, who has little hope in life and is bullied, both at home by his physically and verbally abusive half-brother, Jud, and at school. He is mischievous, stealing eggs and milk from milk floats, has difficulty paying attention in school, and is often provoked into tussles with classmates. Billy comes over as an emotionally neglected boy with little self-respect. Billy's mother refers to him in the film as a "hopeless case". His father left the family some time ago.
The film shows scenes of Billy's school; the headmaster canes a group of boys who were caught smoking. One scene of comic relief in an otherwise bleak film is of a gym teacher taking part in a football game, fantasising about himself as Bobby Charlton and commentating on the match.
Outside cadging money and daydreaming at school, Billy has no positive interests. His greatest fear is ending up working down the pit as a coal miner (arguably due to the fact that, until the early Seventies, according to John Pilger, British miners were amongst the lowest paid workers in the developed world[4]), but he has no apparent escape route until he finds an outlet through training a kestrel that he takes from a nest on a farm. His interest in learning falconry prompts Billy to steal a book on the subject from a secondhand book shop, as he is underage and cannot get a borrower's card from the public library.
As the relationship between Billy and "Kes", the kestrel, improves during the training, so does Billy's outlook and horizons. For the first time in the film, Billy receives praise, from his English teacher after delivering an impromptu talk on his relationship with the bird.
Jud leaves money and instructions for Billy to place a bet on two horses, but Billy spends the money on chips and on meat for his bird, after having been told that the horses are unlikely to win. However, the horses do win (meaning Jud would have won over £10 if Billy had put the bet on). Furious at Billy and unable to find him, Jud takes revenge by killing his kestrel, whose body Billy retrieves from the bin. After showing the kestrel to Jud and his mother, Billy buries his kestrel in the garden.
Production
Both the film and the book provide a portrait of life in the mining areas of Yorkshire of the time, reportedly the miners in the area were then the lowest paid workers in a developed country.[5] The school used as the location was St. Helens School, Athersley South, but has since been renamed Edward Sheerien School which was demolished when amalgamating with another school and moving to new premises in 2011.
Set in Barnsley, the film contains broad local dialects. The cast have authentic Yorkshire accents and used or knew the dialects. The extras were all hired from in and around Barnsley. The DVD version of the film has certain scenes dubbed over with fewer dialect terms than in the original.
Reception
The film was a word of mouth hit in Britain, eventually making a profit. However it was a complete commercial flop in the US.[2] Roger Ebert said that the film failed to open in Chicago, and attributed the problems to the Yorkshire accents.[6]
The film has universal acclaim and currently holds a score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
