Review: Kes (PG) *****

The story of Kes is the story of British filmmaking at the end of the 1960s.

The film, like its hero, was a runt. No-one wanted to back it and the picture only got made thanks to Tony Richardson, the Shipley-born theatre and film director, who managed to raise a meagre £170,000 to fund it.

But what an impact it made, and continues to make. Kes is a film that evokes northern England as the Sixties turned into the Seventies. It’s a grim film, shot through with despondency and the travails of small-town life, but it is also redemptive. The transformative nature of the film is embodied by a bird.

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Dai Bradley is Billy Casper, a scrawny truant whose life is transformed, albeit briefly, when he steals a kestrel chick and rears it. Billy is a no-hoper, a kid with zero ambitions and prospects. He is destined for the pit, like his angry, aggressive elder brother Jud (Freddie Fletcher) before him.

Yet the bird elevates Billy, opening his eyes to a wider world and via a sympathetic teacher (Colin Welland) he is given hope. Kes was the film that truly launched Ken Loach onto the international scene. There are stories galore as to how his modest movie had to be tinkered with to make it acceptable to international (read “American”) audiences, not least in the dubbing of some of Barnsley accents.

Nowadays Kes resembles a period film. Yet it is also timeless. It is rightly considered one of the key British films of the 20th century and, even today, sits at the very top of Loach’s achievements. It is being re-released to mark his 75th birthday.

On limited rerelease

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