Small Faces

If you see this in the TV listings, local videoshop, wherever, Get It! You will not find a more accurate movie that conveys the state of Glaswegian upbringing as it was and still is today. The violence, the course language and the way the young 'gangs' live and breathe on machismo and fights. The film shows an artist boy who is somewhat out of place in the world he finds himself living in. With his rather maniacal brother Bobby who just loves to go and fight the 'TONGS'. There is a younger brother in this family who becomes more of a central character as the film progresses. I don't want to give the story away so I will just say, if you want a true drama with no frills, fluff or effects, violence shown as it is, brutal and frightening (although I dont mean to put you off as it is highly watchable and not TOO brutal) -the utter desperation that some people live in and not only when this film is set in but today too. I know, I have lived in a similiar world. Nothing has really changed. If you want to find out just what this is like..GET THIS MOVIE! If you are from Glasgow or most places in central scotland - GET THIS MOVIE! Thats all :)

(Just GET THIS MOVIE..)

Small Faces stands out as an unsentimental and unpatronising glimpse of the life of 1960s working class youth in Glasgow. The film is directed with a light touch and brilliantly conveys the experience of growing up in the slums with the stereotypical escape-routes of gangs, drink and education. In refusing to romanticise its subject matter the film is bleak, funny, brutal and life-affirming all at the same time.

The gifted Scottish director Gillies MacKinnon made this wonderfully fresh film about growing up in Glasgow in the late sixties and which he co-wrote with his brother Billy. It has the same feel for time and place and what it's like to be a teenager in a slightly idealized, hyper-realist past but it's an altogether more kinetic work full of great visual flourishes.

It centres on the three Maclean brothers, the deeply troubled, almost psychopathic Bobby who is a member of one of two rival gangs, (J S Duffy), Adam who is a talented artist hoping to go to Art School, (Joe McFadden) and the youngest Lex, who like Adam also has a talent for art but who also fosters some of Bobby's rebellious spirit (Iain Robertson). When Lex accidentally shoots a member of the rival gang in the eye, the boys find themselves caught up, in an almost surrealist fashion, in the conflict which turns very nasty indeed. MacKinnon may be dealing with such conventional issues as gang warfare but he treats the material in ways movies haven't done before. Adults, such as the boy's mother, (beautifully played by Clare Higgins), remain very much on the fringe.

This is a violent, darkly funny but mostly tragic film and the performances from the mostly young cast are extraordinary, in particular from J S Duffy and Iain Robertson and from Garry Sweeney as the vicious leader of Bobby's gang. The film wasn't widely circulated or seen and consequently was not a commercial success yet it remains one of the key British films of the past 10 years.

Life in the tough end of Glasgow in the late 1960s is delightfully and sometimes painfully presented here. This is clearly a work of well-observed autobiography by the Mackinnon family - Billy the writer/producer and Gillies the director.

At the centre of the film is the Maclean family - widowed mother with sons Bobby (none too bright), Alan (budding artist in spite of being brought up in the tough end of Govan) and narrator Lex, only 13 and still not sure what life is all about. Iain Robertson's performance as Lex is so good that it is barely credible that he has not reappeared in anything more worthy of his acting talent.

The film sets up a series of oppositions - gangs (Glens versus Tongs); romantic family life vs tough and unromantic street life; loyalty vs betrayal. Far from resulting in simplification, this actually makes the life of young Lex even more complex as he is, sequentially, drawn to each aspect of these opposing ideas.

Director Gillies shows he knows how to film his environment and gives us telling and memorable images - such as a huge close-up of blood running down a plug-hole that looks like some work of abstract art.

Nowhere near as clichéd as most coming-of-age movies, this is a joy for teenagers and adults alike.

I nearly passed this movie up as the film guide had written a poor review (do they even watch the films?). In the end I watched the start intending to go to bed and ended up watching the whole film.

What interested me most was the picture the film gave of life in Glasgow during the 60's. The landscape of the film is one of endless factory's, warehouses and derelict buildings. All of which seem to look back to the past. The streets of Govanhill where the Glyn live are cobbled and winding narrow passages. Later in the film we are shown 'tong land'. Three massive tower blocks seemingly standing in the middle of a waste land. At the road leading in some graffiti reads 'you are now entering tong land'. The bleak concrete land in which they live is very striking and seems to belong more to the 70's than Govanhill which seems to belong back in the 1800's.

The film itself is good and I doubt anyone would be disappointed were they to watch it.