Word: loach
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...enough to get him dismissed even from Bedlam. Janice, submitted to electric shock and heavy drugs, retreats ever deeper into her dark private world, until at film's end, standing lost and mute, she faces a class full of bored medical students. It is clear that Director Ken Loach (Kes) and Scenarist David Mercer (Morgan) intend their movie to be a plea for greater flexibility and experimentation in the treatment of mental disorders. Wednesday's Child is a vigorous indictment, but Loach and Mercer might have made their points even more forcefully if they had remained a little...
...Boucher is also part documentary. The movie was shot in a French 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...
...proceeds, with quiet dedication, to train the bird, which he calls Kes. The obvious contrast between earthborn Billy and skyborne Kes is stressed to the breaking point and beyond. The entire film harks back to the angry young man movies of the early '60s, but Director Ken Loach still conjures up some forceful moments. The casual sadism of schoolmasters, the brutality of one child to another are rendered with astounding empathy. One scene, funny and frightening by turns, finds Billy and some peers being dressed down by the headmaster while they try to stop laughing at his endless platitudes...