Good Boys Film Club
'The Boy's Body': Penda's Fen w/ live musical performances
- DIRECTED BY Alan Clarke
- UK
- English (with subtitles)
- 1974
- 92 MINS
- 12A
- Tue 10th Sept // 19:00
- Mill Hill Chapel
Good Boys Film Club presents its inaugural screening of Alan Clarke's seminal film: Penda's Fen (1974).
Pagan deities, magnificent angels, and demons long-forgotten haunt the waking experience of Stephen, a local vicar's son. Trapped in the murky purgatory between boy and man, Stephen must confront his body's relation to the land, desperately grasping for clarity amongst the influences of authority, religion, and history. 'Penda's Fen' deftly renders the body of the boy as fragile and malleable, one that transfigures under the weight of masculine expectation, finally breaking from underneath the pressure to be birthed anew.
The screening will be preceded by performances from local musicians Midnight Cat Meeting and Hexham Heads, alongside an introduction exploring the film's themes of masculinity, boyhood, and homosexuality.
Pagan deities, magnificent angels, and demons long-forgotten haunt the waking experience of Stephen, a local vicar's son. Trapped in the murky purgatory between boy and man, Stephen must confront his body's relation to the land, desperately grasping for clarity amongst the influences of authority, religion, and history. 'Penda's Fen' deftly renders the body of the boy as fragile and malleable, one that transfigures under the weight of masculine expectation, finally breaking from underneath the pressure to be birthed anew.
The screening will be preceded by performances from local musicians Midnight Cat Meeting and Hexham Heads, alongside an introduction exploring the film's themes of masculinity, boyhood, and homosexuality.