This is England (Shane Meadows/2007)
Director: Shane Meadows.
Cast: Thomas Turgoose (Shaun), Stephen Graham (Combo), Jo Hartley (Cynth), Joe Gilgun (Woody), Andrew Shim (Milky), Vicky McClure (Lol), Rosamund Hanson (Smell), Andrew Ellis (Gadget), Kieran Hardcastle (Kes), Jack O'Connell (Pukey Nicholls).
Writer: Shane Meadows.
Produced by: Mark Herbert.
Director of Photography: Danny Cohen.
Film Editing by: Chris Wyatt.
Music by: Ludovico Einaudi.
Costume: Jo Thompson.
Synopsis
Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is an english boy from Thatcher era, who lives in a coastal town with his mother only, since his father died combating at the Falklands War (Malvinas). Shaun, despite his loneliness, will find a local skinhead gang that will confront him to his first life lessons.
About the film
Shane Meadows films have been always connected to the process of passing from childhood to adolescence, and so from adolescence to adulthood. His films show families built on the streets, families made little by little and with a few.
Meadows has been focused to picture the economical and social processes England has gone through since Margaret Thatcher era. But not from the huge facts, or the ones recorded by history (which serve as a scenery from which to tell the story), but from a story of the most tough learning and growing process. And that is the thoughness that nurtures and gives rythim to "This is England", that from his title calls us to sense the different varieties and meanings of this expression. And, the purpuse for this particular period of time in the recent history of England, according to the very testomony of Meadows, is that he grew up in that England, the one with unemployment, empoverishment of small towns, meaning the diminution of chances to develop capacities of the childrend from the work force.
Meadows, as a child like Shaun belonged to a skinhead gang, the ones that now are related to radical groups that have as ideals segregation and discrimination, were more a contracultural expression that had its roots at the end of the sixties, at the encounter between the sons of jamaican migrants with young english workforce classs. Their tough appeal (jeans, shirts, braces, sking heads, high boots) went along with their thoughts about life as a constant struggle. If hippies were looking to lavish a peace and love culture, the skinheads from the sixties had very clear that life was hard and difficult and that we had to be ready to fight for what we considered fair.
From those times we remember the Jamaican group The Maytals (now known as Toots & The Maytals) - and that without hesitate would deserve a comment aside - , plays a significant role as the film soundtrack. The fusion and rythim from this group (that combines ska, reggae, gospel and R&B) brings the perfect tune to go along with joy escenes and camaraderie, to the ones more crude. The music complements and accompanies the eighties skinheads that listen to jamaican music, but hit every single one that is not white and protestant.
We’ve just mentioned that Meadows films worked with stories from kids having the streets as a space to survive, for Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) it is not the lack of love or affection which pushes him to the street, but that this place, is the only space in which his emotions and inner feelings are understood. The pain he carries for his father death finds a perfect spot at the radical skin group of Combo (Stephen Graham). Precisely, between both characters occurs a symbiosis that becomes very natural, because both mean and are something for the other, that they feel they have lost and couldn’t have back again.
Without a doubt theres is a lot to say about “This is England”, but we would close this comment saying that is a film with an even rythm, with an atypical ability to confront us to the inner contradictions of a gang of buddies and displaced adults, struggling to make them a space. A film to watch.
Juan Alberto Gonzales Hurtado.
Traducido por: Paola Fattorini.
Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is an english boy from Thatcher era, who lives in a coastal town with his mother only, since his father died combating at the Falklands War (Malvinas). Shaun, despite his loneliness, will find a local skinhead gang that will confront him to his first life lessons.
About the film
Shane Meadows films have been always connected to the process of passing from childhood to adolescence, and so from adolescence to adulthood. His films show families built on the streets, families made little by little and with a few.
Meadows has been focused to picture the economical and social processes England has gone through since Margaret Thatcher era. But not from the huge facts, or the ones recorded by history (which serve as a scenery from which to tell the story), but from a story of the most tough learning and growing process. And that is the thoughness that nurtures and gives rythim to "This is England", that from his title calls us to sense the different varieties and meanings of this expression. And, the purpuse for this particular period of time in the recent history of England, according to the very testomony of Meadows, is that he grew up in that England, the one with unemployment, empoverishment of small towns, meaning the diminution of chances to develop capacities of the childrend from the work force.
Meadows, as a child like Shaun belonged to a skinhead gang, the ones that now are related to radical groups that have as ideals segregation and discrimination, were more a contracultural expression that had its roots at the end of the sixties, at the encounter between the sons of jamaican migrants with young english workforce classs. Their tough appeal (jeans, shirts, braces, sking heads, high boots) went along with their thoughts about life as a constant struggle. If hippies were looking to lavish a peace and love culture, the skinheads from the sixties had very clear that life was hard and difficult and that we had to be ready to fight for what we considered fair.
From those times we remember the Jamaican group The Maytals (now known as Toots & The Maytals) - and that without hesitate would deserve a comment aside - , plays a significant role as the film soundtrack. The fusion and rythim from this group (that combines ska, reggae, gospel and R&B) brings the perfect tune to go along with joy escenes and camaraderie, to the ones more crude. The music complements and accompanies the eighties skinheads that listen to jamaican music, but hit every single one that is not white and protestant.
We’ve just mentioned that Meadows films worked with stories from kids having the streets as a space to survive, for Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) it is not the lack of love or affection which pushes him to the street, but that this place, is the only space in which his emotions and inner feelings are understood. The pain he carries for his father death finds a perfect spot at the radical skin group of Combo (Stephen Graham). Precisely, between both characters occurs a symbiosis that becomes very natural, because both mean and are something for the other, that they feel they have lost and couldn’t have back again.
Without a doubt theres is a lot to say about “This is England”, but we would close this comment saying that is a film with an even rythm, with an atypical ability to confront us to the inner contradictions of a gang of buddies and displaced adults, struggling to make them a space. A film to watch.
Juan Alberto Gonzales Hurtado.
Traducido por: Paola Fattorini.
1 comentario:
Took me time to read the whole article, the article is great but the comments bring more brainstorm ideas, thanks.
- Johnson
Publicar un comentario