My Ain Folk (1973)

My Ain Folk: Directed by Bill Douglas. With Stephen Archibald, Hughie Restorick, Jean Taylor Smith, Bernard McKenna. Jamie and Tommy are separated by the death of their grandmother; Jamie with another relative and Tommy to a welfare home. Now Jamie is all alone and his life is not at all happy taken over by silence, rejection and violence.

“All right, not much votes for that sublime oddity of a film. I saw it by chance, together with the other u0026quot;episodesu0026quot; of Bill Douglasu0026#39; autobiopic – if I may use that word. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt is quite unique. No other piece of cinema ever reached that utter sadness, ever showed those quietly shivering landscapes – except may be Dreyeru0026#39;s Vampyr, and possibly Straub / Huillet at their least boring. Dreyer ? Straub ? Huillet ? Yes, but you sometimes have those spectral moments, those white explosions in more mainstream, more meaty movies such as Them (just think of the beginning in the desert) or Kiss me deadly. Or, say, The Misfits, the garrulousness of which is (for me) redeemed by Monroeu0026#39;s silent dance around a tree in the sparkling white night.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhen I hear Mr van Sant babbling about the cinema of reality and other fake highbrow concepts, I think of Bill Douglas who, 30 years before Mr van Sant, triggered the question with far more talent. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eCouldnu0026#39;t Criterion do the world a favor and have these three films issued on DVD ?”