Kes (1970)
Directed by Ken Loach
Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.
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What critics compared Kes to
It's not just that our hero, Black's quack supply teacher Dewey Finn, is to all purposes a headbanging jackass who can't even spell his claimed name ('Schneebly'); nor that his tutoring style has all the selfless delicacy of Brian Glover's football refereeing in Kes.
Liberal Brit director Kenneth Loach ("Sweet Sixteen"/"Poor Cow"/"Black Jack") helms in his first feature a splendid unsentimental realistic working-class family drama set in the drab northern coal mining town of Yorkshire, England, in its slum section of Barnsley (it was filmed on location).
(Think Brian Glover on the football pitch in Kes.
But when he's good and sticks very close to the ground he's capable of great films, such as Kes, Land and Freedom or My Name Is Joe .
Ken Loach's ("Poor Cow"/"Kes"/"Land and Freedom") neo-realism drama Sweet Sixteen is a simple and familiar modern urban story about a boy determined to have a normal life despite his unfortunate circumstances.
Loach's best films -- "Kes," "Raining Stones," "Land and Freedom" -- play like he's somehow convinced reality itself to pitch in and make his points for him.
Some will recall Loach's great film " Kes " (1969), about a poor English boy who finds joy in training a pet kestrel--a season of self-realization, before a lifetime as a miner down in the pits.
Influences here range from Ken Loach’s 1969 gem Kes, Carroll Ballard’s 1979 classic The Black Stallion, François Truffaut’s timeless 1959 stunner The 400 Blows, John Boorman’s graceful 1987 drama Hope and Glory and Andrea Arnold’s 2009 marvel Fish Tank.
Blockbuster horror films tend not to evoke Ken Loach’s Kes…