My Childhood

Bill Douglas's 1972 film is the first part of his autobiographical trilogy, set in a Scottish mining village in the early forties. Jamie is eight; he does not know his father, his mother is in an asylum and he lives with his grandmother. There is little food in the house, coal is expensive and there is almost no affection. The language is extremely spare: little speech, no music, and scenes joined together in short pieces. Douglas avoids sentiment entirely in telling his own childhood, and that distance makes the film harder still. Jamie's relationship with a German prisoner of war working in the village is the one warm strand. It runs under an hour. It is counted among the most important works of Scottish cinema. Who it's for: viewers who like spare, poetic cinema. Who it's not for: anyone expecting narrative and emotional relief; the film gives neither.