Directed by:
Alan ClarkeScreenplay:
Roy MintonCinematography:
Phil MéheuxCast:
Ray Winstone, Mick Ford, Julian Firth, Ray Burdis, Philip Jackson, Danny John-Jules, Perry Benson, P. H. Moriarty, Phil Daniels, Sean Chapman, Patrick Murray (more)Plots(1)
In the late '70s, director Alan Clarke was hired by the BBC to make a television drama about life inside a juvenile detention centre. The programme was so relentlessly brutal that the horrified network banned its broadcast forever. In defiance, Clarke and producer Clive Parsons remade the film as an even more uncompromising theatrical feature. Ray Winstone stars as Carlin, a young thug rising to the top of an inhuman prison hierarchy amidst violence, vengeance and sexual assault. This is the grim and graphic indictment of the British borstal system that outraged a nation and shocked audiences worldwide. This is Scum. (Shock Entertainment)
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Of all the pictures about the malfunctioning of a penal system with an approach of “the stronger dog gets to fuck", this is the strongest in the genre dog park. And more disturbing (and therefore more powerful) is that it is about young punks who need a firm hand, uncompromising routine and discipline, but not at the price of bullying, humiliation, rape and other similar cute things. The despair of this vicious circle of “rebellious brats versus jailers with a chip on their shoulder" (the supreme scene from that point of view is Archer’s friendly chat with one of the screws), where the penal system becomes a parody of itself to such an extent that it breeds and teaches what it was created to combat, and perhaps this has never been captured on film so realistically, depressingly, chillingly while not moralizing.
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Photo © G.T.O. Films Ltd.
