Kes | Ken Loach

So you know that beeaauuutiful time when Barnes and Noble has a 50% off sale? Well I went on a rampage and Kes was a blind buy that completely blew me away. It is a seemingly hopeless movie and it really connected with me and hurt me. When I watch a movie, I want to feel something. The stronger the better. It's a magical movie although its setting is anything but. The acting seems so genuine because it is. It is essential viewing.

From Criterion,
Named one of the ten best British films of the century by the British Film Institute, Ken Loach’s Kes, is cinema’s quintessential portrait of working-class Northern England. Billy (an astonishingly naturalistic David Bradley) is a fifteen-year-old miner’s son whose close bond with a wild kestrel provides him with a spiritual escape from his dead-end life. Kes brought to the big screen the sociopolitical engagement Loach had established in his work for the BBC, and pushed the British “angry young man” film of the sixties into a new realm of authenticity, using real locations and nonprofessional actors. Loach’s poignant coming-of-age drama remains the now legendary director’s most beloved and influential film.