Apaches (film)
Apaches is the title of a Public Information Film (PIF) made in the United Kingdom in 1977. Produced by the Central Office of Information (COI) for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), it was shown extensively in the Southern, Westward and Anglia regions, before being shown either on film or videocassette in primary schools. It was shot on 16mm film at a Home Counties farm in February 1977. The 26-minute-long film deals with the subject of the dangers to children on farms, and has been seen in schools all over Britain, as well as Canada, Australia and the United States. The timeframe of the film is somewhat confusing, giving a surreal feeling to the events portrayed. The film was directed by John Mackenzie, written by Neville Smith and produced by John Arnold and Leon Clore. Apaches is now one of the most notorious public information films of all time.
The film, which dovetails the narrative conventions of the western with PIFs, follows the misadventures of a group of six young children (Kim, Sharon, Michael, Danny, Tom and Robert) in a rural British village, who enjoy playing on a nearby farm. Throughout the film the children play at being "Apache warriors", hence the film's title. All but one die in various shocking accidents, largely due to the children's carelessness, suggesting that the children would still be alive if they had known what dangers lay ahead. Other commentators have suggested, however, that the adults were also responsible, as they appear several times and don't attempt to stop the children.[1]
Plot
At the start of the film the narrator, Danny (who calls himself "Geronimo") introduces the viewer to his friends. We see the children playing while in cutaway scenes back at Danny's house, a tea party is being prepared. As the farmer opens a gate and drives his tractor through the field where the children are playing, Kim jumps up onto the trailer part, pretending the tractor is a train and shooting at it, while her friends are following behind. The tractor makes a turn, and she falls off and is run over, and the camera focuses on the horrified expressions of the other children, followed by close-ups of a large pool of blood on the ground and a broken toy gun. We then see the class teacher back at the children's school, removing the name tag from the storage peg for Kim's coat.
In the next scene, the children are playing in the fields again as their parents prepare to go to the tea party. The boys want to play Football but the game changes to kick the can instead. While hiding from Danny, Tom walks along the top of the fence surrounding the slurry pit, but falls in. He calls out for his friends, but nobody seems to hear him. He is shown to slowly sink into the slurry and is ultimately sucked under. He drowns and his last breaths bubble up to the surface. We see that the children at the village school have been given a day off because of his death, and the class teacher is shown removing the books and toys from Tom's desk.
Back at Danny's house, the table is being set for the children's party, and the children are again playing at being cavalry and later "Apaches." When the game finishes, the children wander into an equipment shed, and Danny picks up a bottle of chemicals, suggesting they "celebrate our victories by drinking the white man's fire water." (The design of the bottle suggests that it is weedkiller, possibly Paraquat.) The contents are poured into a mug but the more cautious Michael points out that they don't know if this would be dangerous to drink. The children discuss whether or not the contents might be poisonous, and pass the mug around to sniff. They agree to mime-drink it just in case. Sharon takes the mug and accidentally swallows some of the liquid (ironically, she was the one who suggested they mime-drink it); she spits it out and seems to be fine, but as the children go home, she is seen coughing and looks unwell. Later that night, Sharon is heard screaming for her mother; the next shot is of her parents clearing out what had been their daughter's bedroom, with a close up of the now empty bed. Danny comments that he does not understand why grown-ups drink. His parents pour whisky from a bottle that looks exactly like the one Sharon drank from, showing how easy it would be for a child to mistake them.
Later, the remaining children are again playing in the fields, and one of them narrowly avoids being run over by a tractor like the first victim. They are chasing each other, pretending to be characters from the television series Starsky and Hutch, when Michael accidentally dislodges a heavy iron gate and Robert is crushed beneath it. The camera focuses on the shocked expressions of the other two children as they watch the lifeless body, blood streaming from the ear, as more people arrive for the party.
There are now only two children left, and Danny decides to go off on his own and look for more kids to play with him and Michael. He walks through the cemetery where his friends are buried, and meets some farmworkers at the top of the hill going for their break. He asks if he can sit on the tractor, and the driver says yes - but to be careful. In voiceover, Danny as "Geronimo" states that there will always be hope for the Apaches as long as one of them is left alive. He plays behind the wheel pretending to be driving a racing car but accidentally releases the handbrake, and it careers down the slope as the farmer rushes to help him. The exterior of the tractor is shown as the camera focuses on the body of Danny in the tractor (it is assumed that the boy may have snapped his neck when the tractor crashed). His parents are then shown in his empty bedroom, the mother sits miserably in the room shaken by the events.
There are funeral scenes of Danny's coffin being buried as the vicar commits him to the ground, before the mourners move on to the wake. Danny, who we now know to be dead, talks calmly about his family all arriving for the "party" being prepared earlier in the film. Michael, also present, is revealed to be Danny's cousin - the only child not to have been killed by his own reckless behaviour, despite Danny having described Michael as "daft". Danny's voice fades into a ghostly echo as he sadly says he wishes he could have gone to the party.
Closing credits show a long list of real children who had died in actual farm accidents in the year before the film was made.
CAST
Danny. Robbie Oubridge
Michael. Ian Scrace
Robert. Wayne Tapsfield
Sharon. Sharon Smart
Tom. Fion Smith
Kim. Louise O'Hara
CAST
Home viewing availability
Apaches was finally made available for home viewing by the BFI in 2010, along with other such Public Information Films of the time such as Building Sites Bite, on the compilation DVD COI Collection Vol 4: Stop! Look! Listen!
See also
References
External links
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