Sack Race
2007
16mm film, 7 mins 30 secs, looped, with soundtrack
This film was made in Port Glasgow with the co-operation of a local school. It records a sports day, and couples it with the soundtrack from ‘Kes’, the 1969 film by Ken Loach ( a film that also features an emotional scene on a sports field). The footage seems historically vague, as if it could have been shot at any time over the past forty years. By association with ‘Kes’ it seems to suggest that conditions of struggle and poverty amongst working class communities have not changed in four decades. Its use of high-speed cinematography and sentimental music also suggests that social documentary techniques can only hope to aestheticise this subject matter.