This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2007)

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patrick
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2007 12:15 pm
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#1 Post by patrick » Fri May 25, 2007 8:57 pm

Anyone on here seen this yet? All the early reviews from my friends are pretty ecstatic (evidently screener copies are floating around the US), and I think Dead Man's Shoes is one of the better action/thriller films I've seen recently.

This BBC review seems to sum it up nicely:
It's hard to describe Shane Meadows' latest film without making it appear a great deal less interesting than it actually is. It's a semi-autobiographical tale of a young boy adopted by a gang of skinheads in a grey seaside town. And on that basis, This Is England sounds, in short, like typical grimesville British filmmaking - concrete, rain and misery. This couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, the film is fizzing with energy and humour, powered by brilliantly engaging performances.

Chief among these is newcomer Thomas Turgoose as Sean, a put-upon 12-year old who finds unexpected friendship with a group of local skinheads led by the sweet natured Woody (Joseph Gilgun, another stand-out performance). These skins are a far cry from the image of racist thuggery that the movement became known for in the 80s. It's all about the music, and of course the clothes - although Sean is too small for Doc Marten boots, he still gets the haircut, the plaid shirt and the braces. For a while, everything is sweet in Sean's world. He even shares his first kiss with a Boy George lookalike with the charming name of Smell.

But soon, conflict arrives in the form of Combo (Stephen Graham, also superb), an old mate of the gang whose time in prison has left him with a strong sympathy for the National Front. Combo's racist agenda splits the gang and Sean, tragically, finds himself turning to Combo as a substitute for the father he lost in the Falklands. Meadows is an exhilarating filmmaker and This Is England is his best film to date - an honest, emotional, funny and deeply moving portrait of growing up. Don't miss it.

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Rsdio
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#2 Post by Rsdio » Sat May 26, 2007 5:27 am

It's really, really excellent. I don't think I can say after one viewing that it's a better film than Dead Man's Shoes, but I found it to be more emotionally powerful for it's tighter focus.

I don't want to write too much if there aren't many people on here who've seen it yet, maybe the biggest compliment I can pay it is that whilst I was watching it I seriously contemplated for the first time if the divorce of my parents when I was younger had any real negative impact on me. It's a question I've been asked countless times by countless people and I've always said that it hasn't (and I still believe that), but the fact that this film shook that belief for the first time is testament to it's brilliance.

The title fits it perfectly too.

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colinr0380
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#3 Post by colinr0380 » Sat May 26, 2007 10:20 am

The view of the Like Anna Karina's Sweater blog. I also heard Mark Kermode in his podcast say that it was a very impressive film that should serve to remind people about skinhead culture and how it folded in many influences from other cultures before it was taken over by being associated with the National Front. (Something I've no knowledge about so I'm interested in seeing the film to find out more - it sounds like a comment on how the working class groups turned on easier and more obvious targets when there was no possible opposition to the Thatcher regime's wholesale and brutal changes to their lives).

I hope that Shane Meadow's first films (Small Time and Where's The Money, Ronnie?) show up on DVD soon, either as extras or on a disc of their own. I also have not seen his more recent short films, so maybe they could get a release too.
Rsdio wrote:maybe the biggest compliment I can pay it is that whilst I was watching it I seriously contemplated for the first time if the divorce of my parents when I was younger had any real negative impact on me. It's a question I've been asked countless times by countless people and I've always said that it hasn't (and I still believe that), but the fact that this film shook that belief for the first time is testament to it's brilliance.
That is very interesting. I was wondering if the film suggests that the main character losing his father lends a greater anxiety to needing to find a role model and father figure that is felt more acutely than someone who lived with both parents would have? And that this might lead to poorer choices in who to respect and look up to because he wouldn't have had a parental example to contrast it with? These difficulties could be in addition to the usual difficulties everyone probably has at times in distinguishing between whether they have a respect for a person as an individual or whether their respect is more superficial for the position of authority that person holds and the power that they may be able to wield.
Last edited by colinr0380 on Sat May 26, 2007 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

spencerw
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2005 7:01 am

#4 Post by spencerw » Sat May 26, 2007 10:45 am

I have to say that I thought it was a dreadful. Utterly unimaginative and conventional cinematography, a sentimental story about a group of implausibly New Agey skinheads, and the usual uncritical British wallowing in commodified popular culture.

rs98762001
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:04 pm

#5 Post by rs98762001 » Sat May 26, 2007 1:40 pm

Extremely moving, with a wonderful performance from the kid (based on Meadows himself as a youngster).

The skinheads aren't "New Agey" at all; they're simply a mostly decent group of young people who happen to connect with skinhead culture before it was entirely co-opted by the NF. I will say though that when the NF do enter the film in the second half, it lapses into slightly more conventional territory.

Between this, ROMEO BRASS, and DEAD MAN'S SHOES, Meadows is showing himself to be one of Britain's best filmmakers. He's especially adept at capturing the details of a specific time and place. This one has a great soundtrack too. Let's hope it gets a good release in the US; he's sadly underappreciated over there.

spencerw
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#6 Post by spencerw » Sat May 26, 2007 2:01 pm

rs98762001 wrote:The skinheads aren't "New Agey" at all; they're simply a mostly decent group of young people who happen to connect with skinhead culture before it was entirely co-opted by the NF.
British men are not that touchy-feely today, never mind in the early 80s, when the film is set! The behaviour of the skinheads is more redolent of Californian psychotherapy than West Midlands council estates of 20 years ago.

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Rsdio
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#7 Post by Rsdio » Sat May 26, 2007 2:29 pm

colinr0380 wrote: That is very interesting. I was wondering if the film suggests that the main character losing his father lends a greater anxiety to needing to find a role model and father figure that is felt more acutely than someone who lived with both parents would have?
I think it does suggest that with Combo as well as Sean. Combo uses what he knows about Sean's background to manipulate him, a mirror image of Combo's own story as he also comes from a broken home and was doubtless easy prey for the National Front's spiel because of that vulnerability.

I think Combo's a fantastic character, it would've been so easy for him to be a cartoonish monster but I felt as much for him as I did for anyone else in the film (and I felt for them all without exception) - my heart really broke for him in one scene in particular. Thinking about it now, he's probably the biggest victim in the whole thing.

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lazier than a toad
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#8 Post by lazier than a toad » Sun May 27, 2007 7:32 am

British men are not that touchy-feely today, never mind in the early 80s, when the film is set! The behaviour of the skinheads is more redolent of Californian psychotherapy than West Midlands council estates of 20 years ago.
Were you ever a skinhead?

As far as I am aware Meadows was, right? And that fact has informed him in making this film, with almost autobiographical elements at times. No?

spencerw
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2005 7:01 am

#9 Post by spencerw » Sun May 27, 2007 2:12 pm

lazier than a toad wrote:
British men are not that touchy-feely today, never mind in the early 80s, when the film is set! The behaviour of the skinheads is more redolent of Californian psychotherapy than West Midlands council estates of 20 years ago.
Were you ever a skinhead?

As far as I am aware Meadows was, right? And that fact has informed him in making this film, with almost autobiographical elements at times. No?
No, I was never a skinhead. But in the period the film is set I was a British male of roughly the same age as some of the characters in the film, and I knew people across the youth cultures, including some skinheads. This does not answer to my experience at all. I suspect that Meadows has either deliberately or unconsciously conflated his memories with far more recent (and non-skinhead) phenomena.

rs98762001
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:04 pm

#10 Post by rs98762001 » Sun May 27, 2007 2:55 pm

spencerw wrote:No, I was never a skinhead. But in the period the film is set I was a British male of roughly the same age as some of the characters in the film, and I knew people across the youth cultures, including some skinheads. This does not answer to my experience at all. I suspect that Meadows has either deliberately or unconsciously conflated his memories with far more recent (and non-skinhead) phenomena.
Not every film has to answer to your experience. I grew up in London in the eighties, and I knew plenty of skinheads who were more like Woody than Combo. And as far as I can tell, nobody has taken Meadows to task for his representation of the culture. Just because you don't recognize it yourself, it doesn't mean it's not accurate.

And taking a youngster under your wing and trying to help him automatically qualifies as "Californian" and "New Agey" in your book? Odd to say the least. Sounds like you expect the skinheads to be represented by the usual cliches. Luckily Meadows' view is somewhat less reductive.

spencerw
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#11 Post by spencerw » Sun May 27, 2007 3:07 pm

rs98762001 wrote:Not every film has to answer to your experience. I grew up in London in the eighties, and I knew plenty of skinheads who were more like Woody than Combo. And as far as I can tell, nobody has taken Meadows to task for his representation of the culture. Just because you don't recognize it yourself, it doesn't mean it's not accurate.

And taking a youngster under your wing and trying to help him automatically qualifies as "Californian" and "New Agey" in your book? Odd to say the least. Sounds like you expect the skinheads to be represented by the usual cliches. Luckily Meadows' view is somewhat less reductive.
I agree that not every film has to answer my experience. But it bears no resemblence to the experience of anyone else I have ever spoken to or any account I have ever read. It is not the fact that they took the kid under their wings that strikes me as false. It has rather more to do with the remarkable quantities of hugging and uplifting words of sugary enouragement these young men share. If this was how things were, I missed it and continue to do so. However, if someone can point me to an independent source that verifies that young men in council estates (or anywhere else, for that matter) shared such a tactile and emotionally open culture in the early 1980s, I would be intrigued to hear of it.

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Rsdio
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#12 Post by Rsdio » Sun Aug 05, 2007 10:59 am

2 Disc DVD release for the 3rd of September in the UK according to DVD Times, hopefully a few of you across the pond will pick it up as I'd like to hear some perspectives on Meadows from other countries.

rs98762001
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:04 pm

#13 Post by rs98762001 » Sun Aug 05, 2007 1:33 pm

It's in limited release right now in LA and NY, and has been getting mostly fantastic reviews.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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#14 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Sun Aug 05, 2007 2:31 pm

rs98762001 wrote:Not every film has to answer to your experience. I grew up in London in the eighties, and I knew plenty of skinheads who were more like Woody than Combo. And as far as I can tell, nobody has taken Meadows to task for his representation of the culture. Just because you don't recognize it yourself, it doesn't mean it's not accurate.
Well like yourself I lived in London (Brixton) in the late 70's and through the 80's; the years of Rock against Racism, 2-Tone and the Anti-Nazi League.

What dissuades me from going to see this film, is the accompanying commentary or any discussion on it. This, spearheaded by Meadows' himself, puts forward a thesis that even up until the early 80's there were pockets of benign skinheads who were somehow infiltrated by Fascist agitators and corrupted by racist ideology.

Frankly I find this total specious bollocks. Otherwise what drove the organisations cited above into existence with widespread support in the late 70's.

If anyone else on this forum went to a football match between 1977 and 1982 or to any of Madness' gigs during this time which were disrupted by British Movement skinheads I think you'll find that they can testify to a quite contrary take on the matter. This is not an argument about 'when the rot set in' but that racist/Nazi thought was endemic to the whole subculture. Granted there were ultra leftist variants who were allied to the SWP but this came much much later in an attempt to simultaneously subvert and recruit the boot boy image. And yes they listened to Jamaican ska music and adopted in part the West Indian rude boy look but it didn't stop them throwing bananas onto football pitches at black players.

The idea that right wing troublemakers upended a working class youth movement to its own devious ends just smacks of inverted tabloid hooey.

Grumpy old ex-punk.

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Rsdio
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#15 Post by Rsdio » Sun Aug 05, 2007 2:49 pm

Since I wasn't even born by the period in question I've only got second-hand accounts to go by so I can't say whose version of events is closer to the truth, but I do think not seeing the film over that is cutting your nose off to spite your face a little bit. The film's only concerned with one small group of people (not all of whom are skinheads), not the movement as a whole and it serves as a backdrop rather than being the real theme of the thing. After all, this is based on Meadows' own experiences at a very low level rather than being an attempt to document the history of skinhead culture.

patrick
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#16 Post by patrick » Sun Nov 11, 2007 8:20 pm

I finally got to watch this, and I was deeply moved by it. As someone who's run in punk circles for a long time and been around plenty of skinheads (racist and otherwise) this film really struck me as being a sober examination of how and why people end up joining up with the National Front or the Hammerskins or whatever other racist group. Combo is manipulative and knows how to break apart Woody's de facto leadership (and I thought it was obvious but also very telling how he told Shaun it was OK to come to him if he needed to cry, but then out came "real men don't cry" when he beats Milky), but he's also a fragile character who feels like he's been done wrong - and, while I don't share his sentiments, it's easy to see how Thatcher's Britain could lead someone to that. Meadows has put forth an accomplished and at times extremely beautiful film - the sequences between Shaun and Smell were absolutely brilliant - and while I agree that parts of the second half are fairly well-worn, it never seems to sensationalize the subject and all the characters, racist and otherwise, come off as believable and human. I don't think Woody's group were new-agey at all, they were simply generally nice kids and some of them were sucked into Combo's lifestyle due to the fact that they probably identified with the music and the clothing style and were seduced into mouthing off things they didn't really believe in. I think it's important to note that other than the brief National Front meeting there's no "co-opting" of the working class at all, something that seems to pop up in movies like American History X - there's no smart Nazi "mastermind" suckering in gullible kids.

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miless
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#17 Post by miless » Sun Nov 11, 2007 9:34 pm

patrick wrote:there's no smart Nazi "mastermind" suckering in gullible kids.
well, other than Hitler.

The points you bring up are all the reasons why I think that this film is apart from all those AH-X type confrontational-racism films. most of all it's an intelligent film that doesn't try to force its subject matter in any way (or at least in any way that seems unnatural).

zombeaner
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#18 Post by zombeaner » Sun Nov 11, 2007 11:16 pm

patrick wrote: there's no smart Nazi "mastermind" suckering in gullible kids.
I really think this is naive.

patrick
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#19 Post by patrick » Mon Nov 12, 2007 12:04 am

Obviously Combo is seducing these kids with all of his talk of pride and honor and England as something more than just a country, but it seemed pretty clear to me that he wasn't like, say, Stacy Keach's character in American History X, even if he does refer to the kids that follow him as his "troops." Ultimately, Combo is just as mixed up as the kids that follow him, and one of the strongest things I felt running through the film was the fact that none of the characters seem to really believe the things that they're saying. Woody and his friends are just kids looking to have a good time, Shaun is easily swayed by his lack of a father figure and the circumstances in which he was left fatherless, and Combo is a disenfranchised man who's lashing out at what he sees as the cause of his situation. Yes, he's manipulative, but I'd chalk that up to him being twice as old as the kids he's leading around - the scene where he tells Lol he loves her shows that he's stunted in his understanding of the people around him. Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that even when Combo is getting Woody's friends to turn on him there's not that sinister element that you see in the older Nazi characters in movies like American History X and Higher Learning (good grief, I never thought I would mention that movie ever again). And that's where I think Meadows gets it right, his film is intelligent and heartfelt - and more than likely the product of someone who got swindled by those ideas only to realize that they're a load of shit.

filmnoir1
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This is England

#20 Post by filmnoir1 » Fri Feb 08, 2008 2:09 am

I have now watched Meadows first film 24/7 and This is England. In both cases I would freely admit that meadows is one of the finest British directors working today. There are moments in his films where he channels the best of Mike Leigh, Lindsay Anderson, and even Carol Reed. What intrigues me about all of his films is the deeply personal nature of his filmmaking and how within that level he is able to comment on and critique the destruction of the British working class by Maggie Thatcher and her policies of economic globalization.

Unfortunately for us in America there is no filmmaker who possesses nearly as much talent or insight into the power of film to make a statement about societal ills, except maybe Spike Lee.

Meadows has a complete grasp of how to compose his shots so that they are dynamic even within a mileu as gray and desolate as the broken down industrial heart of England. He also displays a keen understanding of how to use sound and music in really interesting ways. I have noticed that he uses a lot of asynchronous sound in his films which allows the image to speak without being diluted by a constant reliance on speech or other elements of sound. He is truly one of the world's great young directors, but alas he is not known in the US. Yet, perhaps this is a good thing because it will allow him to continue making interesting and challenging films.

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