Cinematic Point Of View

Kes (1969) is a film by director Ken Loach about a 15-year-old named Billy Casper who lives with his mum and half-brother in a working-class mining town in Yorkshire. Left home alone by his single, working mother, bullied by his half-brother, written off and tormented by teachers and classmates at school, Billy has little to look forward to in a world of miserable adults as he faces a very real future of working down in the mines.

One day, Billy finds a kestrel in a nearby field and decides to try and train it. After a bit of research into falconry, Billy finds he has a real talent for the art and turns his relationship with this bird into the one bright spot in his life.

The poster for Kes says, “They beat him. They deprived him. They ridiculed him. They broke his heart. But they couldn’t break his spirit.” That’s about the long and short of it. Over the course of the film we see Billy beat down both mentally and physically by just about everyone in his life, yet who Billy is at his heart remains intact.

As Billy’s last name “Capser” likely implies, he is a ghost in some ways. His needs and pain going largely unseen. At times, it might feel excessive in its portrayal of human cruelty, but I think that it’s compounded to help you experience what it feels like to be in this sort of situation.

Thinking back to the world of my own childhood, in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it’s not a far cry from my own memories. Teachers who bully and shame. Classmates who tease and torment. This was my experience too. I realize that kids today live with their own brand of this treatment, both in-person and online, but back in the day there was a real feeling of helplessness. Nobody talked about this sort of thing. You took the treatment and you moved on. There were no lifelines and there was nobody looking out for you. I knew many kids who had it far worse than I did and more in line with Billy’s story.

This treatment often leads Billy to make poor decisions. He steals and lies at the drop of a hat. He nicks a book on falconry at the store. He steals some milk off the back of the milk truck. He has to fend for himself because nobody else is. He does what he has to do to survive, much like everyone else around him, except that Billy does it with an innocent heart. While others project their lives of pain, Billy does his best to not hurt anyone.

Shot in Ken Loach’s naturalistic, social realism style, with mostly non-professional actors, the film excels at feeling more like a documentary than your typical narrative story. Everyone is so damn good. I can’t explain how much you start to care about this kid and his situation.

When I told a friend of mine that I had finally watched Kes and how it had broken me, he said, “There’s life before watching Kes and life after watching Kes.” It’s true. This isn’t going to be a film for everyone, but I guarantee its a film you won’t soon forget. I know I won’t.