AND BACK HOME AGAIN - BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT : "SWEET SIXTEEN"

Not everyone is a great fan of Ken Loach. This, by the way, is something I can quite understand. Social realism is all well and good, heck, I’d go as far as saying that it is necessary, but it is very hard to watch at times. Ironically, it is hard to watch for different reasons whether it is done well or not; badly done it reeks of melodrama and takes itself far too seriously; well done it can be heart-rending, the sort of thing that sticks in your mind for days afterwards. Nearly all Ken Loach’s films are, without a doubt of the second kind. Sweet Sixteen is one of his more recent works that takes an unflinching look at the difficult lives and choices faced by people living in Scotland.
At 15 years old, Liam has already dropped out of school and is something of a businessman. He and his best friend Pinball have a tidy little business selling cigarettes – among other things – on the streets. Liam has had to learn to take care of himself quickly; his Mother is in jail, his father is not in the picture and his mother’s latest boyfriend Stuart is a total and utter bastard and his older sister is busy trying to raise her son on her own. Bleak as the situation may seem, Liam has a dream. His mother is due to come out of prison soon, if by that time Liam can buy a nice house for her to live in, he can get her away from his latest step-father and they can start a new life together, mother and son. What is more, a chance encounter with one of the important men in town seems to offer Liam the break he needs. Sure the dealings he has to get involved in are more than a little shady, but does that really matter if they bring him closer to his dream? Whether the closeness of the dreams is an illusion or a reality however, remains to be seen…
As is most of his films, this too is a stinging critique on the part of Ken Loach of the system we live in today. In Liam’s world, determined by material needs, ethics really do not have a place. Liam’s dreams are those of many young people today really, he dreams of money, a house, material gain. All this, he hopes at any rate, will “buy” him the happiness and more importantly the motherly love he craves. So goal-oriented is young Liam, and also of course he is in so deep at such a young age, that he doesn’t even realize there is an important price to pay for all these, especially in the way he is trying to achieve his goals. As he gets sucked into the underworld, Liam will change, but sadly he will lose very little of his initial naiveté; thus he ends up mimicking the gangsters in films; Scarface and the like, or more immediately for him the real live gangsters all around him, all leading to the films dramatic climax…
As some of you may know, Loach has a number of films specifically about Scotland and the North of England, detailing the economic strife and tough life lived there. This is not least because he is originally a miner’s son from the same area. However, just because a message has been repeated often, it doesn’t make it any less true. And not just in Scotland; all around the world wherever there is economic under-development. Sweet Sixteen is a beautiful and sad reminder of our times, well worth watching and ruminating on…