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The youngsters on the bus to juvenile school are introduced with close-ups so tight the camera can only pan down to their shackles; later on, a tracking shot prowls spaciously as one inmate fills a sock with billiard balls and smashes another's noggin in. To Alan Clarke, both movements are equally entrapping—the camera moves, but there's no escaping the systematic maws of a soul-crushing regime. Prisoners are welcomed with punches, tribal lines are quickly set up, violence lurks in mess halls, basketball courts, ping-pong tables. The baby-faced lad (Ray Winstone) bids his time and takes his blows, then takes down the "daddy" (John Blundell) by bashing his mug in the lavatory. Another youth (Mick Ford) walks barefoot in the cold ("I'm a vegetarian") and prefers acerbity to brutality as a means of rebellion, his interest in Mecca is triggered by a mention of St. Francis of Assisi. The meek newcomer (Julian Firth) has no armor and suffers multiple buggerings in the greenhouse while a guard gazes from the window. ("I am happy" is painted on the wall outside.) The folly of "character-building" in hell, a cry against "institutional lies." Blades dive into wrists, blood flows through white sheets, an uprising finally fills the halls. The sounds of revolt are short-lived, Clarke ends with a grisly glimpse of the aftermath and one minute of silence. Losey's The Criminal is the paramount antecedent, a virulent hierarchy updated from the BBC original just in time for the rise of Thatcherism. "Up your fucking borstal!" With Phil Daniels, John Judd, Philip Jackson, Peter Howell, John Grillo, Ray Burdis, and Alan Igbon.
--- Fernando F. Croce |