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Somehow, it has never once occurred to me that "old boy" was anything other than an old British colloquialism, but at somepoint in the film I was suddenly thunderstruck that "old boy" is part of the class structure and rather than just being background patter it was supposed to be communicating to me information about the relationship of the two people (the one saying "old boy" and the one to whom the term is directed) as well as convey information about their high social status (they come from families well off enough to send their kids to boarding schools.) i've never noted in a thousand movies that the term meant anything, but it all of sudden hit me while watching this film.

That said, if the educational policies seen in Kes for poor kids are repulsive (a system that funnels every male who reaches maturity into the pit), at least we know that the rich are forcing their children through an even more vile education system one of systematic abuse and toxic social ideologies.

And I'm not talking about the social ideologies of the kids that sensibly end the film with their rebellion. But the prefects and headmaster and parents and other children that buy into and perpetuate these cycles of abuse. In some ways it reminds me of greek culture with their abusive cycles of hazing rituals (and post graduate access to power and privilege), but far, far more extreme, and inflicted upon children at a far more vulnerable stage of life.