小孩与鹰

鹰死了，小孩的一部分自我也就死了。

想想这个小孩正在经历的人生，和他将要经历的人生，雏鹰之于小孩的意义，绝不是一个如同猫狗一样的宠物或者玩伴。这个被现实牢牢绑缚的孩子在放飞雏鹰的时候找到了难能可贵的自由，也在这只雏鹰身上寄托了自己所有的自尊。或言之，这只展翅翱翔的鹰，就是孩子的精神图腾，是铅灰色的人生里唯一的光荣和梦想。

很长时间以来，我一直有一个观点，一个人终其一生都要去寻找那些能点亮我们生命的高光时刻。所谓的高光时刻，未必是多么了不起的成就，而是一些对于自己而言意味深长的事件——譬如我在升4段的升段赛中强势逆袭，并在第七局下出了人生中最热血的一盘棋。对于电影中的小孩来说，他的童年是如此的不堪，未来也是一片灰蒙蒙的模样，他养育的这只鹰几乎可以视作人生中最高光的部分；如果这只鹰能被小孩顺利地养大，他未来的人生虽然晦暗，但养育鹰的回忆将会永远地照亮他的一生。

但是鹰最终死了，死得痛苦，死得委屈。孩子心中的光熄灭了，而这束光本将照亮他的一生。我原本想说，如果这束光注定会被残忍地熄灭，那还不如不曾亮起；但我还是认为，亮起又被熄灭的光，总比光从未亮起来得更好一些。

What gives a touch of realness to Kes (1969) is that the actors used, including the extras were all locals coming from Barnsley, a town in South Yorkshire, England. Not to mention, the film was also shot on location. Kes was actually a 1968 novel A Kestrel for a Knave, turned to a film. The author of the book is also Barnsley-born, Barry Hines. Both the film and the book captured the reality of the mining areas of Yorkshire at that time where the people in the area lived a tough life, a result of wage restraints and pit closures because of the blooming of oil and gas industry. The children, too, lived a rough childhood. Most of them were already thinking of having a job or like Billy Casper, whose already working as a paperboy, distributing newspapers from houses to houses. Kes has the elements of Italian Neorealism with that of using non-professional actors and having a sad ending. The film is about Billy Capser, finding solace with a kestrel which he named Kes, in the midst of lack of hope. In this analysis, the mise-en-scène, cinematography, and sound will be discussed.

Despite the film used non-professional actors, the acting came out naturally and effortlessly. This natural acting may come from the fact that the actors were the locals themselves and were conversing in Yorkshire accent which would be the most they were comfortable with. The overall colour tone of this film is rather cold and the lighting is of hard light. This sets off the right mood for the film since it portrays the tough life of the Barnsley locals where the people were always mad, harsh, lacking of love and hope. Billy Casper had a broken family with him constantly fighting with his older half-brother, Jud, having no father figure, and his mother who just didn’t expect much from her children and spoke of them in a regretful manner to her friends. The teachers at school never cared about the students and neither had hope in them. The students were always deemed as worthless and rubbish especially by the headmaster.

This kind of toxic environment is hostile to children because they would grow up believing they are rubbish and in the end, they become one. But to spark hope amidst the darkness, Billy’s English teacher did show a sign of change and for the betterment of Barnsley’s children. Billy was never the kind to show interest in class and always gets himself into trouble but since he took a kestrel from a nest on a farm, ever since then he for once, love what he’s doing. One day, Billy did an impromptu talk about his kestrel and received positive feedback from the class and for the first time in the film, Billy felt appreciated. All of this thanks to his English teacher who encouraged and supported him to talk about the kestrel. The English teacher believed in Billy and didn’t just perceived him as a delinquent and thus, resulting in Billy having confidence in himself; what can be taken as a lesson.

The cinematography in this film consists of wide shots of Barnsley town with the starting scene of Billy running down the town establishing the condition of the town as dirty and worn-out. Chris Menges managed to beautifully portray the essence of Yorkshire by giving a perfect balance by showing wide shots of the sombre look of the mining industry and also the greener part of Yorkshire where Billy trained Kes. Other than that, The emotions of the actors were successfully delivered with medium close ups and shallow depth of field. This kind of shots are excellent to create an intimate moment with the characters as we delve deep down in their emotions. Plus, the harsh shadows surrounding the faces of the characters and also the surroundings further accentuate the whole essence of the film. Despite of Kes being a sad movie, the film still has the beauty of its own with the aesthetic value of the colour tone and also the camera work, which just adds a beautiful melancholic and nostalgic feeling and it will stay with you for as long as it will.

The film is shot in Barnsley and contains broad local dialects and even the actors themselves conversing in thick Yorkshire accent. There are some scenes in the DVD version that were dubbed with fewer dialect. In a 2013 interview, Ken Loach, the director of this film, said that during a screening by United Artists, the American executives that were watching it said that they could understand Hungarian better than the dialect in the film. This shows that Americans and the English people are not the same though they speak in English but because of the dialects. Kes’ audio compared to nowadays movie is that the audio feels distant from the characters as it’s not attached but that could be explained by the dubbing or it could just be the differences in audio recording technology.

Kes is a film that beautifully encapsulates melancholy with ending scene that shows Kes the kestrel died in the hands of revenge of Billy’s step brother, Jud. The death of Kes is felt dearly because Billy was at his happiest and most liberated that he would ever feel when he trained Kes and let him flew across the vast green field. When Kes died, it somehow showed that Billy would have to return back to the depressing reality of the abusive world. Though the sound is not as grand as today’s film, it didn’t budge the fact that Kes is indeed a work of art and is beautiful in its own way supported by the smooth narrative and stunning cinematography that enhances the whole mood of the film.

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For me Ken Loach's "Kes" bookended the decade of British "kitchen-sink" social-realism dramas starting with "Saturday Night And Sunday Morning" in 1960, although two more different films you probably couldn't find.

We see the whole film from the perspective of the young Yorkshire school boy Billy, played by the waif-like David Bradley, who, although in the film he's meant to be fifteen or sixteen looks more like eleven or twelve. Bullied at school for having a single parent, his mum, a much older, overbearing, miner half-brother and probably just being so small and quiet, his outlook on life changes when he happens upon a kestrels' nest in an old building nearby.

He then takes one of the birds from the nest, steals a book on falconry from a second-hand bookstore and sets to building a relationship with the bird while training it. It's clear that the lad has no other meaningful relationship in his life, certainly not with his mum or his loutish brother and no close school friends either. At one point he tells an interested school-friend that the bird can never be tamed and it's clear that we are meant to relate his own individuality to that of the bird.

So, he finds consolation with the kestrel, but when he effectively gambles on his brother's gambling habit, the sibling wreaks a terrible revenge which makes for a suitably downbeat finish.

Loach literally drops the viewer in and out of these episodes in Billy's life as scenes seem to end if not abruptly, certainly sometimes scruffily, adding to the natural realism for which he's obviously striving. That said, a few of the scenes such as the super-competitive exercise master's football-match, seem somewhat contrived and the dialogue is sometimes unnatural, although I must admit I had no problem at all picking up the strong local dialect used throughout, but then again I am Scottish and we know a thing or two about heavy accents.

Young Bradley is remarkable throughout, unlike so many other child actors he's just completely natural, unlike a few of his classmates it has to be said. The school teachers are a bit of a motley bunch, but weren't they always I guess, some of them never happier it seems than when dishing out corporal punishment, others, like the Colin Welland example here, genuinely sympathetic, fair-minded and interested in their pupils' educational and emotional welfare.

I'm roughly of the generation depicted here and so could relate to much of the content, even if some of the characters seem exaggerated and the closest I ever came to bringing up a kestrel was probably fending off a stray seagull or two but even in making this the point of difference for the film, Loach still convinces the viewer that this series of minor episodes in a young lad's life really could have happened.

Nostalgic but unsentimental, the dirty streets and industrial landscapes beautifully shot as if it was a Hovis advert, Loach here reminds us to sometimes remove our rose-tinted glasses when recalling our cherished childhoods.

by Lejink

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Saturday Night Sunday Morning with small raptors? Because the main character's older brother Jud (Fletcher) is Arthur Seaton in a picture nine years later. Unlike Reisz's 1960 kitchen sink realism, Loach's focuses on the younger brother of the estate's cock of the walk, Casper (Bradley). He's a diffident and odd and self-reliant tween loner who muddles through with a paper job while enduring the manifold indignities of school. Petty theft and hustle occupy his narrowing horizons. And then life takes a turn for the interesting when he spies some kestrels in a field. He steals a book on falconry when he can't get a library card quick enough, and teaches himself how to keep a falcon whom he names Kes. This labor of love gives Casper a dreamy sense of dignity and worth that helps propel him through the casual sadism of school mates and masters alike. There is one sympathetic teacher who by chance draws Casper out one day in class about Kes, and a vista of understanding glimmers for a time. The teacher visits Casper and his bird and sees the boy fully, as no one else has done, for the first time. Naturally things can't go especially well thereafter because, well, this is kitchen sink realism and its the north and nowt ever goes well. Loach implies without insisting too much on the connections between Kes and Casper, two wild things that with nurture can be trained but probably not finally tamed. The metaphor doesn't work fully, but we are probably not too far off in seeing Casper's future as little less grim than that of poor Kes in the end. David Bradley in the lead role is all kinds of wonderful. That performance helps carry the freight of Loach's seething indictment of English education—had that performance been less nuanced or robust, the film could easily have been crushed by the weight of Loach's anger at the outrages of the 11-plus.

by ocontrarian

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A beautiful film with a brilliant central performance, stunning photography, poignant themes of freedom and flight, ambition, and the shattering of dreams. It paints a revealing picture of contemporary working-class living in the North of England and tells a story that is both sobering and magical. Kes is surely one of the most influential British films of all time.

by Uberunit

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laceratingly true, beautiful

Easily can relate to this kind of bullying environment. I am one of the Keses of this sad, genocidal world...Still traumatized decades later and only now coming to understand it somehow. Nick Cave’s song sez it best— People just ain’t no good. Trust no one but yourself... hard to grasp for us, much abused empaths, but trye.

by giuseppe2

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One of those understated films involving a troubled child who bonds with an animal (in this case, a kestrel). Meditative and touching but also very slow so make sure you're in the mood before diving in.

by hellaguru

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Ken Loach's enduring coming-of-age film Kes follows a fifteen year old boy living in Northern England who struggles to find his place in the world. At home, Billy Casper is treated abusively by his ruthless older brother Jud, and with indifference by his mostly absent mother. At school, he is tormented by stern instructors and a gym teacher who gets on him for his lack of athletic ability. Billy finds that little in the way of school or work are capable of holding his attention, and his sole interest comes in training a kestrel which he discovers one day while wandering on a farm. Although he rejects referring to the bird as his pet, Billy develops a strong bond with it and nicknames her "Kes." He uses instructions from a book on falconry (which he takes from a book store because his mother is not available to authorize a library card) and in learning to train Kes, he discovers a sense of passion, duty, and responsibility that all the adults in his life fail to instill. At the heart of Kes is the central performance by David Bradley, which is surely one of the most convincing and impressive performances by a child actor set to film. The movie itself succeeds in the rare task of being emotionally moving without relying much on sentimentality. Kes is often a brutal film to witness, particularly the sequence in which Billy and three of his classmates are subjected to corporal punishment in their principal's office after he suspects them of smoking. He then takes the opportunity to rail against the entirety of the younger generation, and his speech displays one of the film's primary themes: that at the root of limited social, economic, and educational opportunities for young people is the failure of their role models to effectively nourish them. Harshness, in the world of Kes is commonplace, but it results in the lack of ambition for children who are then pushed into miserable mining jobs en masse as a result. With the subject matter it works with, it easily could have been either too brutal or too sentimental to be effective, but the precise and realistic direction of Ken Loach, along with a charming score by John Cameron, make Kes a unique and memorable film experience.

by adressbook

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My first Loach film is his hallmark - it's more of a slice of time than a coherent narrative though. The gritty textures of late sixties Barnsley, the greasy quiffs and chips. The fuckin' Dandy. The smoky factoryscapes and grubby green fields. The stuttering stumbling incoherent locals and the lurchingly uneven tone of it all is massively charming. It is reality awkwardly stuffed into a film and all messily busting out at the edges. Like - why was there a running score on the screen for the football game?! Why did it end so suddenly?! I genuinely can't wait to watch it again. My Loachquest begins here.

by CrazyFoxMachine

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More of a movie about a boy bonding with a bird he randomly finds while dealing with bullies at school. Everyone's accents are very heavy and can be tough to understand, but the movie is sort of minimalistic. To be honest, I saw the point the movie was trying to make, but it just felt a bit too vague and it focuses way too much on certain things while not focusing enough on others. Some characters barely get any screen time and there really isn't much plot. I've just seen many better movies with a similar idea to this done better.

by jweber14

在《拍电影时我在想的事》中，是枝裕和谈到自己如何在《无人知晓》的片场指导孩子们表演。为了让影像获得纪录片般的真实感，是枝裕和没有告诉孩子怎么表演，而是在不断与他们相处的过程中，让他们自然而然地表现。

尤其是为了获得绝对真实的效果，是枝裕和采用了肯洛奇在《小孩与鹰》中对待孩子的办法，而非阿巴斯在《何处是我朋友的家》中使用过的方法。两者在某种程度上都通过“欺骗”孩子获得真实反应，差别在于肯洛奇在后续有安抚治愈的过程，阿巴斯则残忍地放弃了。

《何处是我朋友的家》中非常重要的一幕，是阿巴斯联合剧组哄骗小男主角真的拿了朋友的作业，从而让他表现出着急送回作业的焦虑，这种焦虑一直持续到了电影结尾。还有一幕是男孩在给朋友送作业的夜路上，阿巴斯让工作人员扮狗叫吓唬孩子。

阿巴斯是“残忍”的。为了获得完全真实的艺术效果，他不惜将孩子当工具使用。这就涉及到“影像伦理”的问题：演员为了电影可以做出多大的牺牲。之前，冯小刚在《芳华》片场与大家一起隔离“苗苗”的举动引发争议，便是说明“影像伦理”极好的一个例子。

肯洛奇与阿巴斯是不一样的，虽然两位导演在追求表演的真实上颇为一致。《小孩与鹰》的结尾，男孩在垃圾桶里看到被哥哥杀死的鹰，极其悲痛。但这只鹰并非此前一直陪伴男孩左右的鹰，而是剧组另外找到的死鹰。

男孩以为是自己驯养的鹰死了，因此悲痛是真实的。拍摄结束后，肯洛奇把孩子驯养的鹰原封不动地重新交回孩子受伤，并把事情原委解释给他听，孩子破涕为笑。在是枝裕和看来，这种事后修复的手法更加可取。相较而言，阿巴斯过于残忍了。

是枝裕和在处理孩子表演时，学习了肯洛奇的手法，而不是阿巴斯。虽然事后修复也有残酷的成分在，但多少能安抚孩子受伤的心灵。这既坚持了艺术至上的理念（影像的真实），同时也把孩子当平等的人看待。

这是为何是枝裕和的电影里孩子们都如此鲜活自然的原因吧。无论是《无人知晓》《奇迹》还是《小偷家族》，是枝裕和已然成为了当今影坛最会指导孩子表演的导演。不知道哪位导演说的，“唯小孩和动物难拍也”。是枝懂得拍孩子，还能拍得温情感人，源出于一颗纯粹的心灵吧。