Billy Casper lives in the rain soaked, coal sodden Barnsley of the 1960s. He is living in the world of cruel rejection, hopeless isolation and extreme poverty that went hand in hand with working class existence in the north of England. Then Billy meets Kes, a kestrel that is his to look after and raise as his own. The two build a friendship and a connection that enables a profound change in the life of Billy. He sees that a future can be had and that life can be better than just the crushing pain of everyday.

To say anything in relation to a film you have a long personal history with is hard, as it will inevitably be tainted by emotion and remembrance. As a child Kes broke my heart. It broke my heart in such a profound way that I still find it hard not to cry at that final scene. The power of truth in every frame is so hard not to engage with, so hard not to connect with on a spiritual, human level that you are in awe of its radiance. A film that is so powerful that twenty five years after seeing it (and 10,000 other films) it still haunts me and my emotions.

Take the cast who are all superb but David Bradley steals the film. He gives us a performance of compassion and humility. A boy suffering as he does but also still sees hope in life. A glimmer captured by a great balanced performance that is also amazingly captured visually. The camera lives in the world. it searches and scans without being intruding or forceful. Loach and Menges seem to have connected the performances state, visual state and emotional state with ease. so much so that the film is achingly touching in visual form.

The DVD release of this came as a bland, no extra affair and I was excited by what the brilliant Masters of Cinema could add to the mix (See extras below). The restoration is great and adds the shine of celluloid stock, to the grain of truth. The dubbed dialogue is worth a listen to see how audiences can be blocked by regional dialects but shouldn’t be. The interviews are really something else. Bradley’s is tender and Menges is profound. Malcolm’s 1992 interview with Loach is also excellent.

SPECIAL FEATURES including:

• Digital restoration of the film, supervised and approved by director Ken Loach and director of photography Chris Menges, with the filmmaker s original production soundtrack, with uncompressed monaural audio on the Blu-ray edition
• Alternate release soundtrack, with post-dubbed dialogue
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Exclusive new video interviews with actor David Bradley, producer Tony Garnett, director of photography Chris Menges, composer John Cameron, actor Bernard Atha, and kestrel advisor Richard Hines
• Excerpts from the 2006 Kes reunion panel at the Bradford Film Festival, featuring Ken Loach, Tony Garnett, writer Barry Hines and actor Colin Welland
• Extensive 1992 on-stage interview at the NFT with Ken Loach, interviewed by Derek Malcolm
• Original theatrical trailer
• A booklet featuring new writing on the film and archival material