The Best of British Cinema: This is England (2006)
Shane Meadows’ semi-autobiographical drama is excellent — political and poignant
I chose This is England as the first film covered in this Best of British cinema series for a few reasons. Firstly, it’s a film I am very familiar with. I must have first seen it around ten years ago now, give or take a year or two. I’ve grown up with it, and gradually become more aware of its depth over time. It was a personal favourite as a teenager, and I hadn’t seen it since my time in college, so returning to it for this piece was a strange experience. A mix of nostalgia and surprise at new parts of the film which revealed themselves to me for the first time made the film tougher to stomach than usual, though its topics of choice always made it a difficult viewing.
Secondly, it typifies the kind of film that this series will be focused on: important, independent and powerful films about Britain and its issues. Not every film spoken about will be quite so bleak, but many of them will be politically focused. Not all, but many. This is England also bears a number of similarities to one other extremely important British film which will be covered later on in this series — Ken Loach’s Kes. I mean, just look below at the poster for This is England which was on my DVD in comparison to what has become…
