This is England Narrative

This is England has the task of putting 6 weeks of real time into a 95 minute film. Using time and space Shane Meadows is able to put Shaun's 6 week holiday into his film. He has the decision what to include to make this film as interesting as possible. Shane Meadows makes us feel we are living in the moment; we are given the sense of an era. During the 1980s the skinhead culture is in full force and we are introduced to a gang of skinheads when Shaun meets Woody in the underpass. Props such as the fashion and the cars are typical of this era. 

The main characters in This is England are 3 dimensional as they are plot devices. Shaun is the main character and the character that the audience are forced to connect with. Shaun is in nearly every scene and we must accept the decision he makes. This is Shaun’s story of how his life has changed over this holiday. By the end of the holiday he has been through events that are typical in adult life. These events have grown him up, giving him opinions taking him away his young innocence, which every 12 year old has. 

The film in many ways is split into two. The narrative of the film effectively starts again in Combo’s flat after Shaun makes a crucial decision in his life. Combo gives Shaun gives Shaun 2 choice where he draws a line on the floor almost indicating the middle of the film. This is the centre scene to the film. After this scene the narrative resets as a symmetrical story to what happened earlier. At the very start of the film Shaun is filmed alone, with no dialogue, bringing us closer to his character. This type of scene occurs happens at the very end. Using the centre scene as a mirror the features of last scene is symmetrically reflected. Some shots of the first half of the film are not identical but they reflect the same iconography of each other. Shaun is forced to make the same decisions in both friendship groups from both sides of the narrative. It is as though the woody’s gang has had perfect swaps as the father figure which woody represents is replaced by Combo.

Combo as a racist character which has unorthodox opinions compared to the rest of society could relate to Stuart Hall’s enigma codes. Throughout the film we question whether he is this way to be offensive but the scene where he beats up Milky expresses his opinions.