Managing Alone: The Salvation Of Kes
Even though I grew up in England, I never really went anywhere considered the north of the country. I am, I guess, a rural southerner by upbringing, and an urban southerner by education. My parents would take me on the occasional trip to Yorkshire, and I ended up having friends in Liverpool and Manchester, but as the years passed, those friends faded away, and my life settled in the south before eventually moving away to Philadelphia and staying in America for good.
Despite all of this, for as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated with the north. I grew up in a home that loved The Beatles, and as I turned into a teenager I fell in love with the music of the north too. The Smiths, Joy Division, The Fall, The Stone Roses, and in later years Oasis, and dozens of others whose sound seemed to growl out of the black and white crumbling factories and long forgotten industries in order to reach inside of sensitive art college kids all over the world, take them by the hand and say “I feel it too”. There was something about the grey, depressed, bleakness of it all that, as an outsider, was just so unbelievable in what it was producing. I loved it all then, and I still love it all today. I’m listening to New Order as I write this.
I loved the movies of the north too. And there’s some really great ones. The Damned United, with Michael Sheen in wonderful form as football manager Brian Clough is well worth adding to your queue. Brassed Off with a young Ewan McGregor fresh off the success of Trainspotting. And 1971’s Get Carter, with Michael Caine in intense menacing gangster form. But to find the real movies of the north, you have to go back a bit further. Albert Finney’s incredible 1960 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, or John Schlesinger’s stunning Billy Liar from 1963 are better, bleaker, and infused with the kind of biting sarcasm that can only be found in the cities of northern England. But of all the films about the north, there is always one which rises above all others. Only one which you can’t forget once you watch it. And only one which consistently gets voted one of the best British films of all time.
1969’s Kes, directed by Ken Loach, who had cut his teeth with a number of hard hitting social commentaries on television during the sixties, had made the move from small to big screen by the end of the decade, and adapted author Barry Hines’ story A Kestrel for a Knave into a full-length picture. It follows Billy Casper, wonderfully played by the fifteen year old David Bradley, who lives with his broken family in the even more broken northern city of Barnsley. Billy’s a survivor. He’s small and weak, but intensely resourceful. He steals and cheats, gets into fights, and seems to forever find himself bullied and in trouble at school. His life’s prospects are the same as everyone else’s. Leave school and go to work in the local factory. But underneath it all he’s a good kid. His father’s gone, and he’s subject to the violence of his older brother and the indifference of his mother who does little to separate them.
Walking home from school through the nearby fields, Billy finds a bird’s nest, where he eventually befriends a kestrel, whom he names Kes. He learns falconry, steals food, and teaches himself how to get Kes to swoop and circle around him in some of the movie’s most delightful and tender scenes. In all of Billy’s human chaos, he finally finds a friend. These scenes between the kestrel and Billy are contrasted with the abuse and violence he experiences at school. This is most comedically acute during a hysterical football scene where the gym teacher attempts to relive past glories, plays both referee and star player, tackles the kids, and dives for a penalty. The reactions of the boys during the game are all real. When the teacher cheats, Loach leaves the camera running and their complaining is real.
Through Kes, we start to see Billy grow beyond his environment, and the faintest of hope emerges for a way in which Billy might be able to escape the path laid out for him. He is unhappy everywhere, but happy with Kes. He is no longer alone. But it’s a relationship he can’t keep quiet. He shares a demonstration of his skills for one of his more sensitive and understanding teachers, who is greatly impressed, a first for Billy. But when Billy’s abusive brother asks Billy to put a bet on a horse race for him, Billy instead spends the money on food for Kes. When the horse wins and there’s no payout, all hell breaks loose at home, and Kes is killed. Distraught, Billy buries the bird on a nearby hill, and the movie ends.
As bleak as it is, and as unresolved as it leaves us, we still see hope for Billy as the credits roll. He’s found a way out and for the first time felt genuine happiness. Everywhere he’s trapped is just that little bit less oppressive. Kes is a movie which reaches into the hearts of any kid who was picked last in gym class. Any kid who had to endure the bullied abuse of others and the violent indifference of teachers. Any kid who ended up finding something away from it all they genuinely loved. And ultimately, it’s for any kid who managed to escape.
Even though I grew up in rural England, many of the scenes in Kes are deeply familiar. The school scenes of punishment through caning, or the cold bleakness of a muddy football field and a ball that feels as if it’s made of iron when it hits you. The walks through the fields looking for birds’ nests. And those are really the best of moments in the movies. Those moments when the movies hold a mirror up to who we are, and give us a glimpse of who we might become. They take our hand and tell us they feel it too. They give us reason to think we’re not on our own. And most powerfully of all, they do what all great stories achieve. They offer us escape.
Kes is now streaming on Prime Video.
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