Still from This is England
This is England (2006), Shane Meadows
A masterful mix of tragedy, joy and love, Shane Meadows’ This is England (2006) pays homage to the working-class hero against the backdrop of 1980s Britain.
It is 1983. The Falklands War is over. Thatcher has won a landslide and in a nameless Northern town 12-year-old Shaun is navigating the perils of the school playground. A coming-of-age tale with a twist, Shaun’s mundane life is flipped upside down when he stumbles upon a gang of unlikely friends who take him on a journey through anarchy, punk, and two-tone.
Yet, if this sounds like a heart-warming story, This is England is quite the antithesis. Set against a backdrop of brutalist high rises, mundane poverty and crippling unemployment, Shaun’s rite of passage into adulthood is more a baptism of fire. His on-screen mentor, the terrifying thug Combo, begins to slowly engulf all corners of Shaun’s young life, opening his eyes to far-right politics, xenophobia and the senseless violence of Combo’s gang of young criminals. Before we know it, the viewer sees a boy on the brink of social exclusion, complete with a shaven head, tattoos and the trappings of a 1980s skinhead.
It is this duality of anarchy and innocence, comedy and violence, love and hate that makes This is England truly compelling viewing. Meadows presents the ugliness of the skinhead subculture without dismissing its propensity for defiance and hope. By stripping away the classic nostalgia for 1980s British culture, Meadows’ film is a complex ode to a forgotten age of youth.
It is 1983. The Falklands War is over. Thatcher has won a landslide and in a nameless Northern town 12-year-old Shaun is navigating the perils of the school playground. A coming-of-age tale with a twist, Shaun’s mundane life is flipped upside down when he stumbles upon a gang of unlikely friends who take him on a journey through anarchy, punk, and two-tone.
Yet, if this sounds like a heart-warming story, This is England is quite the antithesis. Set against a backdrop of brutalist high rises, mundane poverty and crippling unemployment, Shaun’s rite of passage into adulthood is more a baptism of fire. His on-screen mentor, the terrifying thug Combo, begins to slowly engulf all corners of Shaun’s young life, opening his eyes to far-right politics, xenophobia and the senseless violence of Combo’s gang of young criminals. Before we know it, the viewer sees a boy on the brink of social exclusion, complete with a shaven head, tattoos and the trappings of a 1980s skinhead.
It is this duality of anarchy and innocence, comedy and violence, love and hate that makes This is England truly compelling viewing. Meadows presents the ugliness of the skinhead subculture without dismissing its propensity for defiance and hope. By stripping away the classic nostalgia for 1980s British culture, Meadows’ film is a complex ode to a forgotten age of youth.