This Is England

Just finished watching the movie "This Is England" written and directed by Shane Meadows.

I don't usually enjoy movies about skinheads and violence, and suppose I prejudged that this would be another 'oh what a waste of young men' kinda movies, like all those football violence films that were produced in the UK over the past few years.

But I was wrong about this one; set in 1983 to a depressed thatcherite Britain outlook, the film captures the irony of Skinhead culture, as it borrows so much from Black cultures, such as Ska and Reggae music.

The film follows 12yo Shaun as he tries to fit into his life after his father was killed in the pointless Falklands war. He befriends some skinheads who are drawn to the image and culture, but not the racist element that the National Front bring to your stereotypical Skinhead image. Things go awry and young Shaun chooses to align with the psychpathic 'Combo', who is just released from prison.

Although the film can be violent at times, and contains very racist language, the sheer pointlessness of racism is clear. It made me think of all those angry young men who have no aim in life, all that energy and how the choose to outpour their tensions.

Sad in a way, I just thought if people really explored their social positions, they would look to see how we 'are' managed and contained by governments, who do not care in the slightest how the people are.

Give the people enemys to drain their energy (via fake pointless wars such as Vietnam, Falklands, Iraq etc.... Hell ALL WARS...) and let them kill each other while the real enemy sits in Ivory Towers grinning at the sheeple's pointless battles...