Described by the late David Shipman as a "scream of rage against the suburbs", 'Kenneth' Loach (as he then called himself) and Tony Garnett took a advantage of the freak success enjoyed by their company Kestral's 'Kes' to make probably their bleakest and most nihilistic film, based on their 1967 Play for Today 'In Two Minds' by David Mercer.
The additional of colour if anything actually makes the film look drabber, perfectly complementing the heroine's downward slide into a listless & resigned zombie doped up to the eyeballs on tranquillisers. You only have to listen to the heroine's ghastly mother talking non-stop and never listening where the poor girl's problems really originated.
The famous Loach style was already well in evidence, with all that spontaneity achieved by shooting such a vast amount of footage that one day the Arriflex burned out. Seen after fifty years it's also poignant that Sandy Ratcliffe like Carol White eventually came to a sad end.
The additional of colour if anything actually makes the film look drabber, perfectly complementing the heroine's downward slide into a listless & resigned zombie doped up to the eyeballs on tranquillisers. You only have to listen to the heroine's ghastly mother talking non-stop and never listening where the poor girl's problems really originated.
The famous Loach style was already well in evidence, with all that spontaneity achieved by shooting such a vast amount of footage that one day the Arriflex burned out. Seen after fifty years it's also poignant that Sandy Ratcliffe like Carol White eventually came to a sad end.