Word: kestrel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...town near the site of the Lascaux caves, and many scenes include glimpses of locals whose faces are ingratiating. Kes, a British film directed by Ken Loach, is also part documentary, and the delicate way in which it mixes overt fiction with pure reportage is admirable. Kes is a kestrel hawk; the bird is caught and trained by a 15-year-old boy, and the movie is as much about freedom and repression than anything else. The boy is the no-good-nick of his class at school; the standard target of vicious schoolboy bullying, his mother and brother also...
...suffers from the somewhat shopworn metaphor that forms its core. Billy (David Bradley) is a melancholy loner whose older brother bullies him and whose mother plays aunt to a succession of one-night uncles. Wandering in the woodlands near his Yorkshire village one morning, he spots a kestrel's nest and becomes intrigued with the bird's grace, its power and freedom. He steals a book on falconry, steals one of the kestrel's offspring and proceeds, with quiet dedication, to train the bird, which he calls Kes. The obvious contrast between earthborn Billy and skyborne...