Kes (1969)

(Criterion Streaming, January 2020) Ugh, the curse of being a cinema completist. It means watching widely acclaimed films, such as this perennial mention in longer “best of all time” lists that completely fails at creating empathy, interest, entertainment or affection. That’s Kes for you—a neorealist examination of a poor young boy and his pet bird of prey. Coming from writer-director Ken Loach in the very late “kitchen sink” realism period of British film, it’s about as grimy, miserable and unromanticized as one can expect. Its saving grace (if you have the patience) is some profound social content taking aim at the ways the British lower class was being held down by the system, and everything related to that (but especially the public education system). An uplifting story about a boy and his pet this is most emphatically not—the ending is not meant to comfort you. So is Kes a good movie? Yes! Is it a great one? Probably! Did I want to escape its misery at every moment? For sure!