Why Restless Natives is The Best Film YOU'VE NEVER Seen
The story of Restless Natives follows the adventures of two Scottish youths from the Wester Hailes district of Edinburgh, played by Vincent Friell and Joe Mullaney, who, in rebellion to their drab lives in urban Scotland in the mid-1980s, become modern highwaymen. Donning masks of a clown and a wolf-man and riding a Suzuki GP 125 motorbike, for a joke they waylay and hold up with a toy gun tourist coaches in the Highlands, in the process becoming a tourist attraction themselves. Having inadvertently acquired substantial amounts of money, they proceed to become modern Robin Hoods, doling it out to the poor of their city by scattering it on bike rides through its streets, attracting national media attention and pursuit by the police.
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Will Bryce and Ronnie Witherspoon, who are portrayed by Vincent Friell and Joe Mullaney respectively, decided to hold up tour buses in rebellion to their drab lives in urban Scotland becoming modern highwaymen. They had a toy gun that would shoot out a concoction powders. They inadvertently become tourist attraction themselves and become a modern Scottish version of robin hood spreading their spoils amongst impoverished areas of Edinburgh. The Clown and the wolf man become world famous with TV shows for Japan trying to catch them on film and Scottish police getting help from the Americans. The two became Legends of Scotland.
Restless natives came out at a time of high unemployment in the UK that hit Scotland especially hard due to economic changes and deindustrialisation brought in by the Conservative Government at the time that Scotland had voted against in the 1983 general election. The film reflects the frustration and lifestyle of working-class young Scots struggling to get work in the mid-1980s. The film shows our characters choosing to utilise the freedom of a motorbike to break free from this life style within the brutalists urban architecture and into the beautiful landscape of the Scottish Highlands. The use of the motorbike is also a soft reference to a government minister who told the unemployed to “Get on their bikes” to find a job.
The film has been described as a home-made expression of local Scottish culture and a source of Scottish cultural identity and feeding into the rising Scottish Nationalist movement at the time. This movement lead to the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. With some more recent polls showing support for Scottish independence at around 50-50 this film is still very much relevant in modern Scottish society. The film is a source of insurgent Scottish cultural identity and is very strongly juxtaposed to the idea of Britishness. The political nature can be obviously seen at point where will and ronnie put a mask of Margaret Thatcher on a pile of dung and use it as a road block. Thatcher was so unliked by the working class of Britain that when she died in 2013 “ding dong the witch is dead” reached #2 in the British charts. The film feeds into the Scottish nationalist movement in the arts that is heavily represented by the soundtrack from “Big Country”.
The soundtrack for Restless Natives evokes many mentions of Scottish history such as the line “240 years
We lived without hope and without pride “ This line refers to the battle of Culloden which ended the Jacobite uprising of 1745 and lead to what can only be described as cultural genocide against the highland people of Scotland. the Act of Proscription was put in place in 1746 that made the playing of bagpipes, clan tartans and speaking Gaelic illegal. The Heritable Jurisdictions Act also came into affect and essentially removed any land authority that surviving clan chieftains had, with all ownership reverting to the Crown. this had been compounded upon by an act of no quarter which lead to the execution of most surviving soldiers along with the highland clearance that began not long after in the 1750s. This small line coveys the anti Britishness of the films themes
Restless natives ends with the clown and the wolfmans riding through Edinburgh as crowds cheer them on. (Side note, my dads mates saw them filming this scene and were very confused as to why 2 men were riding down the mound all dressed up being chased by police) before going on one last stickup. Alas this was one to many and were captured by the police. However, the clown and the wolfman get set free, faking their deaths, as not to cause a political situation between the people of Scotland and the British government. The clown and the wolfman had become a symbol of freedom, anti-establishmentarianism and of Scotland.
8 апр 2023