iaingmacg

South East England set comedy about children.

All the themes are brought to the UK's south east in expansive areas of ground that Ken Livingstone would snap up for the Olympics if he ever clapped eyes on it, a school that would cost, even then, noughts per year, and houses inhabited by religious 'brethren' that city commuters and London set media peeps would have been scratching each others eyes out over.

That said, it's a film about kids imaginations, and how impressions can bowl them over.

A grey England inhabited by anonymous school kids except for 2 lads - both orphans of sorts, both artists, both in their own ways uninhibited in pursuit of their lives - is invaded by a French exchange coach load of kids who are more colourful and more plugged in to pop culture, even English pop culture, than their grey uniformed hosts.

The 2 lads had already come together and started building a world from their allied imaginations - one innocent and impressionable, the other also innocent, but without an adult influence to restrain him. When one of the exchange students, a sixth form boy drenched in pop culture and new romanticism, and drunk with the attentions of an admiring troupe of English counterparts, gets a glimpse of their creativity, he muscles in and the meat of the plot is cooked.

From there it takes a possibly predictable path, but that doesn't matter. As you watch it, the playing out of the themes is both fun and endearing, words I don't usually like to use in a review. The tensions are predictable, yet the fantasy theme and the inter-working of imagination with reality in the animations from the boy's drawings give the whole film a rhythm and texture that make it worth the watch several times over. Look back over it, and you maybe won't see anything you haven't seen before, but that makes the fact that it is refreshing, positive, and light all the better.

I kind of forgave it a lot because it brings a lot. Suspend your critical eye and sense of social judgement for this one, enter its fantasy world with the eyes of young adults and near adults, and odds are you will warm to this film whether you want to or not.

Think back on Gregory's Girl, Billy Elliot, Bugsy Malone, and other British films about kids and their world, and you either see an adult's eye, theme, or humour that chaperons you as you watch. With SON OF RAMBOW, the chaperon has been fired.

Nice. Thank you.

Made in 1968, this film still made me shiver even though I started at public school in 1977. Things had changed somewhat by then, but not beyond recognition, and for sure I felt powerful echoes in this movie. By the time I left, the country was steeped in Thatcherism, and the style of self advancement that came with it was replacing the old guard watchers of 'If....' would recognise. The housemaster and headboy were 2 characters I can especially recall, but there are flashes of others in many of the characters.

When you see this film, see it as a historical satire, with first the historical atmosphere of a public school being accurately recreated, then second the satire taking form just in time to administer the purgative judgement of the surreal denouement.

There. Spoken like a public schoolboy.

Jack The Giant Killer is a Film I have been waiting to watch since I was a kid, so I got to record it this year. There are some great comments on it already, so I won't get too Arts Section Review on it, but what I will say is as a film rooted in Great Britain, don't be too harsh on it for Pendragon being the villain, the Sceptred Isle still hasn't come to terms with the fact that the system of rule that overthrew one of its great historical heroes - King Harold, has its descendant still in the seat of government, so you can understand why it gets a little confused when it comes to good guys and bad guys...

Now, before I miss too much, back to the battle with the tinmen...

The entire cast of this production breathe quality into it, without exception. I accept the reading of Lear as a petulant, raging spoilt old man of former power, wanting to bestow his favours upon a grateful audience, expecting to live in grandeur from the ample residue of gratitude he expected to garnish from his generosity for some time forward. I accept the grabbing sisters and dumbfounded sibling, and I am spellbound by the parallel tale of Gloucester's progeny as it binds itself into the main theme. The idiocy of the king, as his retirement is filled with a carebound yet carefree madness, and the final realisation of Lear's love for Cordeila at her death took me through a full journey through the landscape, filling me with (sniffed in) tears when I first saw it in 1983 at 17 years old, and it is still powerful now. My only complaint is about the quality of the VHS version I have. If only I knew which was the best DVD version to replace it with...