KES (1970, Blu-ray released April 19, 2011 – MSRP $39.95)

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Director Ken Loach is a master at producing naturalistic cinema. Movies so sincere and honest you would be excused for sometimes believing you’re watching documentary footage. And the 1970 film Kes might be his finest, most touching work of all time.

“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.“

Kes is almost exactly the type of film I would want to make. Sensitive, subtle and real. Nearly every single moment rings true, from the scenario (I hesitate to refer to it as a plot), the production/costume designs and the incredible, authentic performances. Young David Bradley absolutely steals the show here, delivering a riveting, nuanced performance as Billy, struggling to rise above the unfortunate hand that his single-parent, working-class life has dealt him. Bradley, and all other performers in the film, save one, were plucked from Barnsley, the industrial town where the film was shot. The fact that these moving, real performances are coming from people without experience in front of the camera deepens the sense of awe I feel when watching this film.

Aside from his ability to bring the sociopolitical struggles of working class England to the fore, what makes Loach a particular kind of cinema genius is that he knows just how to coax fully-realized characters out of his untrained actors. He knows exactly where to place his “sympathetic” camera, just at a distance from the actors, to capture them at their most genuine – an observational style famously employed by the likes of Milos Forman and Jiri Menzel. And Loach uses that style to greatest effect here, making Kes a must-see film, in my opinion.

I’m not only in awe of the film itself but also the work Criterion and MGM have put into bringing Kes to Blu-ray. It looks so much better than ever before (the old UK issue DVD is not a pretty sight). While still not perfect (there are moments where damage is still apparent, particularly in the first few minutes of the film) this is most likely the best it can possibly look. Colours are vivid, detail is plentiful and blacks are deep. Grain is quite heavy at times but for the most part, quite consistent. As is par for the course with all of Criterion’s releases, there’s barely a hint of digital nastiness – edge enhancement, banding, artifacts, etc. Kes looks amazing!

The booklet included in the Blu-ray packaging provides quite a write-up on the process used to restore and transfer the film. Here’s a taste:

“With the support of MGM, Kes has been completely restored for this release in a digital intermediate workflow. Surviving preprint film elements included a 35 mm color reversal internegative and the original 35 mm camera negative, both severely scratched and worn from more than 40 years of printing. Since the CRI was complete but the negative unedited, scanning both film elements was necessary. The negative was scanned on a ARRISCAN FIlm scanner in 6K resolution to obtain the full gamut of picture information. Director Ken Loach and director of photography Chris Menges supervised the grading, which was performed on a Filmlight Baselight Eight system. The CRI was scanned on a Spirit 4K Datacine and then used as a road map when the negative was edited to conform to it. Elements missing from the negative, such as titles, optical dissolves, and fades, were taken from the CRI.

Although the color and stability of the negative were good, the image itself was marred by distracting continuous vertical scratches throughout the film reels. Virtually all of these scratches were eliminated using Digital Vision’s Phoenix software, while Phoenix’s Clarity module was used to manage excessive grain. Dirt, debris, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using both Phoenix and MTI’s DRS system. The digital files were next prepped and sent through an Arrilaser to make a new digital negative for preservation, while HD Rec. 709 files were outputted with Assimilate’s Scratch system in full 24p video.“

Just as the the visuals have been cleaned up, so has the audio. Both the original production soundtrack and the international dub (recorded to smooth out and clear up the Yorkshire accents and lingo) sound clean, clear and stable, with John Cameron‘s score dynamic and surprisingly rich.

“The monaural soundtracks were remastered at 24-bit from the optical track negative and original magnetic soundtrack. Clicks, thumps, hiss, and hum were manually removed using Pro Tools HD. Crackle was attenuated using AudioCube’s integrated workstation.“

Special features aren’t plentiful on the Kes Blu-ray disc but the few included are heavy hitters. I don’t need a ton of fluffy extras on my discs when presented with the likes of these supplements! The newly recorded documentary with Loach, director of photography Chris Menges and producer Tony Garnett is worth the purchase of the disc all on its own. Running a solid 45-minutes, “Making Kes” covers all aspects of the production and reveals a great deal of insight into Loach’s filmmaking style. The 50-minute “The South Bank Show” episode covers some of the same ground while exploring the director’s career and other works in greater depth. To my amazement, Criterion has included an entire second film on the disc – Cathy Come Home was filmed for BBC’s anthology series “The Wednesday Play” in 1966 and is featured here with an afterword by film writer Graham Fuller.

Highly recommended!!

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Newly restored digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Ken Loach and director of photography Chris Menges, with the filmmaker’s original production soundtrack with uncompressed monaural audio
• Making “Kes,” a new documentary featuring Loach, Menges, producer Tony Garnett, and actor David Bradley
• The Southbank Show: “Ken Loach,” a 1993 profile
• Cathy Come Home (1966), an early television feature by Loach, with an afterword by film writer Graham Fuller
• Alternate, internationally released soundtrack, with postsync dialogue
• Original theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by Fuller

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