BFI

My Ain Folk (1973) was made immediately after Bill Douglas' My Childhood (1972), again with the support of the BFI Production Board. An increased budget of £12,000 allowed a 55 minute running time, and an opening Technicolor extract from Lassie Comes Home (US, d. Fred M. Wilcox, 1943). This quickly gives way to black-and-white shots of Newcraighall at its bleakest.

The second film of the trilogy is in many ways the harshest. It features many of the same cast members as the earlier films, most notably Stephen Archibald as Jamie, now even more the centre of the narrative, and Jamie's childhood continues to be occasionally relieved by moments of companionship, but a greater emphasis is placed on the boy being alone in an unsympathetic world, subject to both psychological and physical brutality. The structure of the film becomes more fragmented, the images more condensed.

Near the beginning, titles announce that "Granny died leaving Tommy and me to fend for ourselves", and "Tommy had no idea where his father was but I knew where to find mine", but then "As things turned out I wasn't sure about anything". If it is easy for the audience to share Jamie's bewilderment and disorientation, that is partly how the film works, providing moments of remembrances that searingly evoke childhood at its most painfully mystifying.

Guy Barefoot

*This film is included in the BFI DVD and Blu-ray compilations The Bill Douglas Trilogy.

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