Movie Review：This Is England
This is England perpetuates a picture of a country not far from the one we are overlooking now but puts aside the blossoming images sold to the outside world of a hectic and prosperous London and a gay Brighton. The film takes us back to the Thatcher years in a clearly accentuated north of England ridden by jobless youth and financially stretches families, encapsulating a small landscape of issues that stirred the nation under the "Iron Lady's rule".②Medows takes us in what could be described as the "deep England journey". North of the black underground line lay other counties where unemployment and lack of cultural resources are becoming predecessors for extremist thoughts. Social tensions are on the rise, and a new radical party, The National Front is taking advantage of the situation by blending anger and national pride, rallying people around the country.
This is England is a autobiography film of the director, through the lad –Shaun’s eye it show us the England of 1980s, just like the 3-minute episode of the 1983 news to those who experienced it was like yesterday. The protagonist Shaun regains his self-consciousness from the gang of skinhead which gave him not company but also self-esteem. A child who had lost his father at war was well conscious of the society than the others by what he said to Combo: I want my father proud of me. We had already known what will happen next and maybe more understanding to those young people under the mask of punk or skinhead. Indeed they are continuously looking for the value of their life which the society seemed can’t afford them the chance.
What is patriotism in the film seems a line which impenetrate the whole story. To Combo it is what the politicians of the National Front member said; it is the bailment of his youth after his three years in the prison; it was also his complaint of the society which can’t offer him a kind of safety; and also the jealous of those Pakistanis for their happy life. In despite of those patriotism to him is nothing.
While to Shaun the death of his father in the need him to do something to show his lost in the country. To exiled those foreigners in Shaun’s eyes out of England maybe a ways to express himself. Those so called faith and belief when confronted with the real world is merely conquerable. Those eloquent talking just gave them an excuse to relief themselves. Shaun include other shiners just need a shelter to protect them, so that they can still felt the existence of themselves in the society. As for this their patriotism is very weak and can’t strand any test.
And there is no reason for them to hate that foreign group, just because they had a better life. of course it is a kind jealous. Envy to other people’s happy life and they need to abreact them. To them every thing is excuse, the St.George’s cross is excuse, the patriotism is excuse, the skinhead gang is an excuse, and they need the comfort which could get from the excuses.
But they disillusioned when Combo beat milky, they all did, not only Shaun but also Combo the beater. They found nothing can heal the wound they had in their deep heart, maybe what they had done all the time was wrong, or maybe the racialism is the root of all their hate. And at last Shaun threw his cross flag into the ocean, which presented the break up of their dream.
And this film is typical but special England type , after so many Hollywood’s movie maybe we can get some fresh nutrition from it and watching it is also a odyssey individually.
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