areatw Having never read the book that this film is adapted from, I had little idea what 'Kes' was even about, let alone the reputation it has as a British classic. After viewing I can safely say that 'Kes' is a film that I won't forget any time soon. This film takes you through every emotion imaginable. It's funny yet sad, depressing yet uplifting, and it's thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. The broad Yorkshire accent takes some getting used to, even as a Northerner myself I struggled to understand some of what was being said, but that only adds to the genuine, raw feeling to the film.'Kes' is an excellent British film, one that I would recommend for those who enjoy realistic and raw pictures with meaning. This is a film that I will remember and certainly revisit some time in the future.

sharky_55 The world of Kes is the world of our own, declares Ken Loach. He has always been a fighter for the working class, using his art to replace their lost voices over the decades where they have been beaten and forgotten. He provides them a avenue, if not to protest, then to cry out. Kes is an artefact of social realism, shot on a shoestring budget, on authentic locations, with a muddled mix of professional actors and extras plucked from the countryside. It adopts the observational mode of cinema verite, sometimes hovering behind bushes to capture Billy playing alone, sometimes right beside his skinny cheekbones as he pores over his stolen book on falconry. The backdrops are the drabbest, dullest grey, to match the shabby clothing of Billy and his fellow students. The setting becomes a cage for class. Billy may yet have the fleeting freedom to run around town all he wants, but he knows that sooner or later he will be working in the coal mines and wants nothing to do with it. Loach has enabled a systematic blurring of the boundaries that identify the transition from adolescence into adulthood. Billy is being pushed, much too early, to fend for himself and begin to start thinking about a life of manual labour. Barnsley has long swallowed all the other adults with its pessimism, resigned to their jobs, broken in spirit, and his brother is all but gone too. There is no better scene to describe this than the football match the the teacher participates in. Humorously, he imagines himself as Bobby Charlton in the prime of his career about to score the winning goal against Tottenham, but there is where the laughter ends. Brian Glover plays this part without a hint of embarrassment about him; he does not care that he is bullying and pushing little kids in order to fulfill his power fantasy. So it is a little funny, and much more sad. His punishments have an iron-willed logic about them, with a dose of cruelty. This stems from the principal, who personifies all the other teachers and adults - he yells and yells, using only his age as a superior leverage, and does not attempt to make any effort to understand those he addresses. Like everyone else, he too is waiting for a solution, for something to change. In the meantime, boys continue to be beaten by the cane, with little difference. They feel the sting of the blow, and try a little harder next time to avoid getting caught. David Bradley's Billy Casper has other ideas. He has seen what the mines have done to his brother (the employment officer mistakenly thinks this as a issue of physical safety) and will done anything to avoid it. He has a skinny skeleton for a body, and is bullied and tormented both at home and school. Billy has what you would call street smarts, which is just a fancy way of saying that he faces worse than most will in his everyday, and has the uncanny ability to worm his way out of some of these situations and do it again the next day. There is a glimmer of hope in his heart, and the world won't have it - it seeks to beat it out of him.Then one day he stumbles upon something he has never encountered before, a responsibility, a passion. The best scene of the film comes when a teacher encourages him to share his story of training the falcon, and Billy comes alive in his story, in both voice and gesture. After an hour of mumbling and a drooping posture, his eyes light up as he recounts the tale of gaining the trust of Kes. Is the teacher an angle within the ashes? He does something that no other adult does in the film, by admitting that he does not know everything, and asks Billy to share his knowledge with the class. Billy and Kes share a respect that is seldom seen elsewhere in Barnsley. Billy sees Kes not as a pet, a beast that can be tamed, but as a companion who has decided to stay along with him for a little while. He feeds Kes, who returns the favour by allowing him a small solace. Loach has created a tale of such tragedy and inevitability, because Billy sees the falcon take off into the skies, knowing full well that it could leave him and this wretched place whenever it wants, and lives vicariously in the bird anyway.

samwilliams21 Kes is your archetypal social realist film, set in a working class mining town in Yorkshire. The film focuses on the life of a young boy Billy Casper and his day-to-day struggles both at home and school.Billy is presented as being mischievous and deceptive. Frustrating his teachers at school by disrupting classes and daydreaming. When he's at home, his brother Jud bullies him while his mother spares no real affection for him at all. He seems to be a child in need of salvation - with little self esteem and the gradual realisation of his inevitable future working down the coal mine. When he finds a kestrel nesting in a nearby farm, he takes it and returns home to care for it. He steals a book on falconry from a local book store and starts training the bird each day.The Kestrel sparks a passion in Billy, and provides a sense of meaning in his otherwise bleak world. This passion is realised in a scene where Billy is given the chance to talk about his bird in English class. He captivates the room with his stories about 'kes' and we finally see a positive focus for Billy and his future seems a little more hopeful.As you might expect, a gritty northern realist film doesn't end on an up note. Billy's brother Jud kills Billy's bird because he spent Jud's money for the horse racing on food for Kes. Billy is shown burying his bird in the final scene - and what becomes of Billy from this point on is unknown. The film gives an honest portrait of the social circumstances at that time, with a generation of children not having their potential realised. With believable and raw performances all round, Kes is still an affecting and powerful British film.

suldog This is a tremendously well-made film, but there is no let up to the misery. If you want to go to bed happy, go elsewhere for your late night TV viewing.(MY WIFE and I started watching this about two or three minutes into the movie, past the credits, on a local TV station. We stayed up until fifteen minutes past midnight, engrossed in the story, but having no idea what the title was. I just found out by coming here!) The cast is superb. Huge applause for the lead (Billy, played by David Bradley) who was pitch perfect as the boy who trains the hawk. All other cast members are believable as his antagonists, and the English teacher - just about the only nice person in the boy's life - comes across as caring, but not in a sugar-coated or unreal way considering the setting.As others have said, the dialogue is a problem for folks unfamiliar with the accents. We had true difficulty understanding much of what was said, but the emotions were clear and the situations the same.I would not call this an uplifting film, by any means. It is unrelenting in its portrayal of a miserable life, despite the scenes wherein the boy finds happiness with the bird. I suspect it will haunt us for a while. We hoped that the ending might bring some relief, but...