Kes Reimagined dance film based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. Directed 2019 by Ross MacGibbon. Choreographed by Jonathan Watkins (based on Watkins’s 2014 stage version). Music by Alex Baranowksi. Stars Chester Hayes (Billy), Tobias Batley (Jud), Kristen McNally (Mum), Dom Czapski (Mr. Farthing), Phil Snowden (Mr. Sugden), Anton Skrzypiciel (Mr. Gryce), Laura Careless (Kes Puppetry / Woman in WMC), and Barnaby Meredith (Bookshop Owner) as well as Brandon Brereton, David Stirrup, Jonathan Layton, Spike King, Oliver Stanton, Susannah Neave, Edie Marriage Massey, Charlotte Page, and Emmanuella Sarpong (classmates). Set and costumes by Ben Stones; lighting by Mark Henderson; projections by Daniel Denton; puppetry by Rachael Canning; dramaturgy by Ruth Little. Executive Producer was Helen Spencer. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: C+
The kestrel is a type of falcon. It was once the only bird of prey that a serf was allowed to own. The book A Kestrel for a Knave was published in 1968 written in the Yorkshire dialect of British English. It was a critique, from a working class point of view, of the British education system. It seems Yorkshire boys were given exams in school, the true objective of which was to shunt the boys into working in the coal mines. The book was praised and promptly made into a famous “kitchen sink” movie by Kenneth Loach. But the appeal of the book and the movie was limited by the Yorkshire tongue (“harder to understand than Hungarian”). So Jonathan Watkins and Ross MacGibbon sought to sidestep the language issue when they made a dance version in 2019 for theaters, TV, and now Blu-ray.
The name of this title is Kes reimagined. Does this mean you will not understand the dance unless you also have read the book and/or seen the movie? Let’s see some screenshots.
Our knave Billy (Chester Hayes) lives in a fatherless home with his mum and older brother Jud, who already works in the mines. Billy, a poor student, is bullied at school. He feels hopeless:
Abandoned by her husband and stressed out, Mum (Kristen McNally) still hopes she can find a man, or at least a one-night stand:
Billy’s older brother Jud (Tobias Batley ) is a bit of a stud. He berates Billy mercilessly:
Mum and Billy are going to a tavern for a party and looking for action. While Mum is getting dressed, we see that Billy is reading a book he discovered about the art of falconry. Falcons are fierce, independent, free, apex predators—everything that Billy is not:
Jud quickly finds a partner at the party:
Mum has to work harder:
A foreplay pas de deux with a step I’ve never seen before. Don’t try this at home:
Next below is the kestrel puppet created by Rachael Canning and performed by Laura Careless. This kind of abstract head probably worked OK on a stage with the audience some distance away. But would it have been better in this TV version to come up with a more realistic design for the head?
Billy finds a kestral nestling and raises it himself. Below you see him training the fledgling. Laura Careless is not, of course, really there. Once again, this probably worked in the dance theater. But in TV and movies, we are used to seeing real animals that expert trainers provide for realism:
Billy’s teacher takes an interest in Billy and his bird. Now the classmates are incensed that their dorkish classmate is making them look even dumber than they are:
Billy’s only joy is his bird. But do raptors like to fly around in formation with their handlers? I don’t think so. When you let the raptor loose, he flies away looking for a mouse. If he finds a lot of prey, the raptor may return to the wild. But usually he will come back, because he knows that with his handler he is less likely to die young than he would in the wild:
The end of the story involves events that are hard to understand when presented in dancing. When Jud goes to work, he leaves a note for Billy and a coin. The note tells Billy to place a bet on a certain horse at a race track. The odds are really bad for the horse that Jud likes. So Billy just spends the coin on a treat for himself and the bird. But Jud’s horse wins the race! Jud has missed out on a handsome payoff. So Jud kills the bird and stuffs it in the kitchen trash where Billy can find it:
Mum is aghast at Jud’s cruelty:
This sad story was successful as a novel and a movie because Billy’s plight throws light on big problems in the society in which he lived. Billy loved the bird because in training it, Billy was learning a sophisticated skill on his own. Abstract issues like this can be powerfully examined using words printed in a book or dialogue in a movie. But this dance piece show how hard it is to use body movements to deal with abstract issues. And much of what is shown in dance here would only be grasped by a viewer who already knows the story well from the book or movie.
Did Opus Arte, which is the world leader in producing fine-art Blu-rays, do something in the keepcase to help the viewer better understand the title? No. Instead they provide maybe the shabbiest booklet ever by Opus Arte. It has credits and 6 gruesomely dark photos. No synopsis. But there is a 3-page PR piece that makes me think of eating from a small silver spoon a mouthful of twice pasteurized and thrice strained baby food.
Also, this is billed as a film. No way. This is a dance piece recorded in a studio without an audience. It has primitive props and some phony-looking landscape video on a screen. True, the cameramen could take positions without worrying about an audience. But this recording doesn’t come close to sucking you it like a good motion picture does. You are always aware that you are watching a bunch of dancers pretending they are younger than they are while doing things you often don’t understand very well.
Ross MacGibbon does, of course, use some film-like techniques. For example, the first 2 minutes of the disc show the two brothers fighting it out in bed over the single blanket they must share. In the first 2 minutes there are 30 clips of the blanket fight for a pace of only 4 seconds per clip. All this is acted out and recorded well and, but there is no dancing! And In other segments a number of supporting characters appear briefly in various roles that are mostly inscrutable. All this doesn’t keep the viewer from enjoying what dancing there is. But if you don’t already know the story pretty well, you often will feel left out.
Finally, this is only 67 minutes long, but sold at full price. To be a good value, this should have been boxed up with another feature in a double bill. So I grade this a C+ as a title that might be of interest to viewers who already know the book or the movie.
Here’s a trailer from The Space (an arts organization established by the BBC and the Arts Council England). This video fairly represents the show, but it seems to be somewhat different from the Ross MacGibbon’s video file that’s on the Opus Arte disc:
OR
