1960s British film-making showed much of its potential in this now classic movie chronicling the boyhood experiences of Billy (David Bradley), whose expectations lead no further than following his father into the pits when he reaches manhood. Everything changes when he finds Kes, an injured Kestrel, whom he nurses and cherishes back to health. Their relationship becomes symbolic of a doomed attempt to escape the drudgery of the industrial North. Kes is a beautiful, moving and compassionate film, realistic and often funny. Written and directed by Ken Loach, that most politically committed of British film-makers, Kes is one of his most impassioned works of this gifted director.



viewer's comments:


- Soars Above Scholarship
The title is Billy Casper's abbreviation for ‘kestrel.' Ken Loach's movie was refused a London premier lest a Southern English audience didn't understand the Northern Barnsley accents. In the end it had to, given the movie's critical success in the UK. Truthfully singular among ‘school movies,' its underlining premise that there are other areas of learning beyond bleak Northern schoolrooms, KES does not promote the lie about transformation of educational barbarian to worthy scholar through the example of a dedicated teacher. It instead awakens somnambulant educators to the reality that the real barbarians are at the other end of the classroom.

In KES's release year, I taught in a Northern school like this. KES accurately depicts both mood, attitude abroad with gritty Northern English realism. In artfully capturing this, Ken Loach's movie moves. Despite its unaffected poignancy, incidental trivialities- as in real life -remain memorable: The sudden spurt of tears from the ‘neat' boy as he is wrongly punished by the odious headmaster, the ‘night out' in a Yorkshire pub, and the outrageous games lesson by the loathsome Mr. Sugden, [Brian Glover].

At the time I was aware of Loach's other TV masterpiece CATHY COME HOME but thankfully unaware of its director. This meant I enjoyed KES with neither prescience nor tyranny of directorial reputation.



- One of the all-time greats
Voted seventh on the BFI's list of all-time great British films, Kes is an early coming of age film by Ken Loach, an acclaimed director who has been producing quality films on themes of social awareness for over 30 years. Based on the novel by Barry Hines, "A Kestrel For A Knave", Kes dramatizes the grim realities of life for 15-year old Billy Casper (David Bradley) in the bleak mining town of Barnsley in Yorkshire, England. For Billy, life offers little hope for the future other than working in the mines. Disinterested in his studies, the victim of bullies, pushed around by his deadbeat older brother Jud (Freddie Fletcher), Billy finds a spark only when he succeeds in raising and training a kestrel (falcon) that he "finds" on a neighbor's land. Billy's latent intelligence and awareness are brought to the surface for fleeting moments, especially when his English teacher Mr. Farthing (Colin Welland) allows him to speak to the class about Kes, but he is soon overwhelmed by the crush of circumstances at home.

The film has memorable sequences such as a soccer match during school recess where the Games Teacher, Mr. Sugden (Brian Glover), a frustrated professional soccer wannabe, takes over the kids soccer game with hilarious results. Another character you won't soon forget is Mr. Gryce (Bob Bowes), Billy's School Headmaster from hell who tortures the errant kids with moral lectures in his office before caning them. Billy would not win any charming child contests. He lies, he steals, he fights, he's a slacker, but he is very human and we feel for him. We want him to break out and achieve but we know the odds are stacked against him. Kes is gritty, sad, funny, and very moving, a film that avoids maudlin sentimentality to tell a simple story with an authenticity you will not easily forget.



- Great Viewing
I was forced to watch this movie in an English class of mine when i was studying at secondary school. I can honestly say that the entire class enjoyed it even those you at first saw it as a chance to fool about shut up once the movie started.

It is a brilliant insight into some areas of England at that time.You cant help but feel sorry for the boy in the movie and it is very moving. A great movie, if you get the chance watch it you wont be disappointed.



- british film at its best
living in the area where this film was made and attending the school (st helens comp) where kes was filmed i can look back and understand how true to life

this film was. i remember getting caned at school for smoking and plenty of casper type charicters. today all as changed where there once stood a pit now sits an empty field. the pits around the area now replaced by modern industrial estates. the school itself hasn't changed much exept the name.

this type of film will get better with age. although a very tough era looking back. its a time i look back fondly growing up as a child.



- Top Film
The film is fantastic - I love it!

I grew up in a mining community, and remember it being like that - I even remember friends like young Billy too, although I wasn't like him!

The Headmaster, Mr Gryce used to teach my Mum at Hatfield Modern School, and she said he was just the same there!!

Above all, a real good film for everyone to watch!



- Manchester United 1 Tottenham Hotspur 2
The beauty of this film lies in the simplicity and purity of its message. If you want to get along, especially in a Northern English mining town in the 60's, do not ever hope for anything better. If you do, the world's gonna come and kick you in the teeth. Discuss.

Billy Casper has an empty life. In trouble with the police for theft, he shares a bed with his brother (a discontent miner willing to take out his frustrations on just about anyone nearby), goes to a school with some dispiriting and brutally repressive teachers, and has nothing to look forward to but the day when he to descends into Hades to work the coalface.

Until Kes comes along. Kes is a kestrel that Billy rears and trains. Kes soars where Billy can only dream. Kes is hope.

Ken Loach is the master of social commentary and I think this is probably his best film. This film embodies what it means to be working class in all the best traditional ways. You work, you do not have ambition, you are surrounded by people who have accepted their lot in life, you cannot hope for better, you won't be allowed to hope for better. If that sounds brutal, it is and so is this film. You aren't told right and wrong, you are told what is. It is thrust in your face for you to deal with.

The best thing about this film are all the characters that surround Billy. All have had all spirit hammered out of them at an early age and are damned if any one else is going to have any. The teachers casual and resigned brutality living what remains of their dreams by playing against the boys on the football field and imagining they are Bobby Charlton (and still losing) is perfectly displayed. The shop keeper's humouring of childish enthusiasm because he knows it ain't going to last. And most of all Billy's brother's spiteful depression. His spirit has been freshly crushed and it still rankles.

And amidst this gloom shines Billy and Kes. They soar above this nightmare like Andy Dufrense soars when he plays opera to the Shawshank inmates. Ken is telling us hope is a jewel to be treasured especially when it is surrounded by those wishing it crushed and buried.

You must see this film, especially if you've seen the Shawshank Redemption. Be warned though, there is no redemption here. Don't be afraid of the accents you non-Yorkshire folk. Just think of it as Wallace and Gromit without the cheese.



- A pleasure to watch
Kes is a film i was aware about all the way back to when i was at school (it was made the year after i was born)but i never got around to seeing it until now and boy am i pleased i did. Rarely is there a film that exudes charm like Kes. The acting is not brilliant , neither is the script but that is what makes this film such a joy. It made me feel i was back at school amongst the self important jumped up teachers and the cruel kids .It made me remember the times when i was a teenager that i didnt care for at the time yet it also made me long to be that age again! The story is of a young lad who through having a bad time at school and with his family he finds solice in training a young bird of prey. David bradley (Casper) is excellent ,as is Brian Glover as the P.E teacher who likes to think he is Bobby Charlton. The scene when he takes the boys out to play football is brilliant . The cinemetography is superb and the haunting music contributes to what can only be described as Very good movie. 8 out of 10.



- Tough gritty and British! they don't make 'em like this anymore!
Adapted from the Barry Hines novel 'A Kestrel for a Knave'. Kes tells the story of hard done to loner Billy Casper, who is bullied in school, bullied at home and is heading only one way down the pit! Literally This is 1960's England, Barnsley to be exact and in those days the main proffesion was in the coal mines! He finds solitude in a wild Kestrel which gives him a purpose in life as he has finally found an interest, and he trains the wild bird, tells his pupils the duties of looking after it at school his English teacher helps and encourages him through. But the film climaxes with a shocking ending, involving his constantly hindering older brother Jud.

Watch out for the MANCHESTER UTD V SPURS re-enactment on the school pitch. with a frighteningly good performance from the late Brian Glover. A brilliant film 9/10



- life affecting film
Rewarded to see, as I read over the viewers' comments here, that many have mentioned the deep influence which this film has had on them... I wish to add that it affects me deeply, not as an Englander, but, rather, as an educator... The scenes where it is revealed how the educational system misunderstands the boy whom we grow to know intimately in the film really lit my fire! Wordlessly, I vowed NOT to become another Procrustean host, cutting off people's legs, or stretching them to fit the beds I have available. In all truth, it has not been easy... but, as I say, it is rewarding to hear others so deeply affected by this film! I am relieved, also, that it had not, as I had feared, been banished to obscurity!



- Ken Loach's most beautiful work!!
Definitely a film that depicts growing up in an industrial based economical environment very accurately.All of the scenes at school are honest and devastating.The scenes with the kestrel are some of the Best Ken Loach has ever done .The Colors in the film are very muted but add to the dreary feeling of the Main character's future.There is a hidden beauty in the film ,but it's hard to figure out .It will be simple for viewers who have gone thru similar struggles.Hands down vintage British cinema!!



- Possibly the best British film of all time !
Although Kes was not Loach's first film (he had made "Cathy come home" for television and "Poor Cow") it is probably his best both artistically and historically. Historically, the film is an important one, because it's the first one that gives an accurate description of a working-class environment. There had been several social realist movies made before it, such as Karel Reisz's "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" or Tony Richardson's "Billy Liar", but Kes set a whole new agenda. Esthetically, Loach went a lot further than those before him, filming his characters in a quasi-documentary way. Also, the actors were, for a great part, non-professionals, which lent a further "realistic" touch to the film. For the first time, strong regional accents (Yorkshire) were allowed to flow freely. Finally, the story itself is extremely compelling. Without being at all demonstrative or heavy, the film is the most powerful indictment of the british class system that has ever been recorded on film.

Billy Casper, the hero, is shown to have absolutely no chance of escaping his harsh milieu. At home, his half-brother bullies him and he finds no comfort from his mother. At school the behaviour of teachers, career-councillors and headmasters ranges from violent to merely condescending. It's this anti-institutional side to the film that makes it so powerful. Billy basically knows that he'll probably end up down the mine and he knows that school isn't there for his pleasure or his fulfillment but to tell him what to do. So, unable to express himself at home or at school, Billy develops a passion for hawks and devotes great time and effort to the taming of a kestrel. This passion comes to symbolise both the boy's hopes and his identity.

Cast: David Bradley (II) .... Billy Casper
Freddie Fletcher .... Jud Casper
Lynne Perrie .... Mrs Casper.


A Kestrel for a Knave (1969) (UK: working title)
Runtime: 110 min
Country: UK
Language: English
Colour (Technicolor)

From Barry Hines' novel, A Kestrel For A Knave



Another Ken Loach film you might like is Poor Cow, (1967)