Gillies MacKinnon – Small Faces (1996)

Quote:
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.

Small Faces - CG.avi

General
Container:	AVI
Runtime:	1h 44mn
Size:	1.45 GiB
Video
Codec:	XviD
Resolution:	720x432
Aspect ratio:	1.667
Frame rate:	25.000 fps
Bit rate:	1 793 Kbps
Audio
2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/21E122A07D41BB5/Small_Faces_-_CG.avi

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None