This is England

[Sprocket Hole]

I saw this movie last night, and it was pretty good. About this fatherless 12 year old boy who gets picked on a lot meets a group of trojan skins who befriend him. Later on in the movie, the main skinhead, Wattie's charismatic friend gets released from jail with a lot of racist views becomes a father-like figure to the boy, Sean. He takes him to a few National Front meetings and a lot of tension grows between the trojan skins, and the guys with the Nationalist skinheads.

Over all, it was a pretty good movie.

[Sean]

I watched it for the first time the other night myself, it was pretty good. One part that I found particularly amusing was the silent leather-clad butch nazi that just happened to live with him.:laugh:
I have to give the black kid a Darwin Award for going back to the skinhead after all the previous shit, though.

[KurtFF8]

It's a great film. It shows how the skinhead culture was not "racist" but instead a small section became that way eventually. Apparently the director went through very similar experiences that the main character did, so it is in a sense at least semi-autobiographical.


I have to give the black kid a Darwin Award for going back to the skinhead after all the previous shit, though.

The black kid was a skinhead as well you know. Also the racism of boneheads (like the main racist character) wasn't quite as developed at this point, at least not for that character. Although he still was a racist.

[Mindtoaster]

I actually just finished watching it 5 minutes ago. Got onto RevLeft to make a thread about it :o

The end was a bit of a mindfuck. I won't post spoliers but it left me kind of unsatisfied and confused.

The majority of the film was quite good. Though I had hoped it would focus on the split between racist and traditional/anti-racist skinheads, and it really did not for the most part.

[KurtFF8]

Yeah but that was certainly part of the background/environment of the story, but the story was on the main character and his experiences. Also since he was so young, it may have been made in a such a way to demonstrate how he didn't really understand what was going on, and to give the viewer a similar experience. (Although that reading could be false, but I think it could help explain why the focus on the racist/anti-racist split was so blurry)

[Pawn Power]

Other threads on the film:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/england-t74903/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/england-t59761/index.html (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../england-t59761/index.html)

[wigsa]

Great film I thought.I thought it dealth with the split between racist and trojan skins quite well actually.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

I saw it back in April. It is a good film. I can't seem to recall all of the details now that I think about it... but I think KurtFFB is right, it did seem like more of a personal story in a political setting. I think that could almost be it's own little film genre, couldn't it? Indie films that wrap a story all up in a political scene. Like SLC Punk, except that movie sucked as far as its political message went. And is that what Goodbye Lenin! is like? I've never seen it but I hear it's basically like that.

[communard resolution]

Though I had hoped it would focus on the split between racist and traditional/anti-racist skinheads, and it really did not for the most part.

I think the movie was very accurate like that. Any text on skinheads will tell you that there are clear distinctions between such and such skinheads. But the way I experienced them in my teens (and having been part of the punk scene I met quite a few), the majority of them were real fencewalkers. One month, they would hang out with 'non-politicals' or even SHARPs, next month with nazis. Some of them would act like your friends in the daytime and then try to bash you when they met you at night, drunk, and in a group.

The film is set in the early 1980s when there were basically just skinheads, without prefixes. Some of them were fascists, others weren't, but there wasn't really a clear divide between the groups.

I thought this was the first piece of mainstream media that depicted it the way it is, as opposed to the usual 'good skins' vs 'bad skins' nonsense, which really only holds true if you're talking RASH vs. Naziskin; most skinheads are neither, but somewhere in between.

[redSHARP]

Skins for the win!
RASH's biggest enemy is the "apolitical" skins, they listen to RAC and hang with nazi skins, but "arent nazis". even the SHARPS can be scum when it comes to gay skinheads and leftist ideas.

[Sasha]

i bought the movie a while back but didn't come around yet to watching it; maybe somewhere this week.

[rednordman]

I thought it was rather powerfull to be honest. I cannot help but believe that the movie was more about the political time in Britian, than it was about the actual story. Sure they did a good job pointing out that not all skinheads are nazis and that the nazis really where just a tiny but loud minority to the scene, but for me it was more about the life allover the UK under Thatcher, and how her political decisions effected peoples behaviour at the time. I think that anyone questioning the political message of film only needs to see the scenes of the Faulkland War at the end, where their are some British people celebrating on the island, to all of a sudden the shots of the prisioners and soldiers suffering, to realise that it is a very strong but subtle dig at 'the iron lady'.

[Honggweilo]

I love how the movie starts with this close-up of a random wall tag saying "Maggie is a twat" :laugh:

[brigadista]

too simplistic -

[Intifadah]

Good show, very good soundtrack too

[Killfacer]

I like it, although it does seem that any director can make a movie about skinheads in which one of them isn't all bad and get lots of critical acclaim because it's "gritty".

[Pogue]

It pisses me off that loads of people see the film and still conclude that all skinheads are and were racist. They miss the point of the film entirely.

[Riot11]

I like it in the beginning but as it goes on i start to become disillusioned with it.

[Pogue]

I like it in the beginning but as it goes on i start to become disillusioned with it.

Same really. I only like the beginning parts.

[Killfacer]

Hmm, i find the child actor a bit annoying. It's an okay film, one which didn't deserve the critical acclaim it received.

[Jack]

The kid's relationship with the odd looking teenager is too much for me.