My youth is rapidly slipping away from me, alas, so let me revisit some of my favorite films about children and teens!
"The Spirit of the Beehive" - a beautiful (in terms of story, execution and ESPECIALLY visuals) Spanish film that deals with a young girls yearning to understand the nature of death. It explores its subject in a really magical way, I <3 it.
"Linda Linda Linda" is a recent Japanese film about some high school girls who have two days to find a lead singer for their band before their end-of-senior-year school Rock Festival after their old one quits after a fight. It sounds like its really cheesy, but it absolutely isn't... the director uses a minimalist, almost deadpan style that pays attention to the minute details in these girls' final days of high school (and their final days before becoming adults). The ending is completely predictable but very effective, and a collection of shots at the end hold a lot of emotional power when you realize how strange, sad and special this coming of age story really is.
"The 400 Blows" is a fantastic, seminal work in the coming of age genre, again with a completely stunning, powerful and affecting ending. It deals with a young teen in Paris whose antagonistic relationship with his parents and teachers lead him to rebel and eventually get sent to a juvenile detention centre.
"The Ice Storm" is about adults just as much as it is about children, but its a fantastic film and the children's performances, and the children's scenes as a whole are fantastic.
"Last Summer" is a strange, disturbing and memorable look at adolescent boredom and alienation that eventually becomes something sinister. I think it succeeds more as a picture of what teens are capable of when their private worlds are interrupted more than recent films such as "Elephant" (a fine film in its own right, but it seemed to be too much in love with itself, at least for me).
"The Closed Doors" is an incredibly complex assured debut feature from director Atef Hetata. It is about an Egyptian boy struggling to find a balance between his religion, his family and his future. It juggles so many themes but it never gives any of them short shrift, it is a very intricate film that begs to be taken apart and discussed! Watch it if you haven't already!
"Innocence" is a haunting, surreal film about a strange girls' boarding school in the deep woods. It is highly symbolic and very cryptic, but I take it as a huge metaphor for the brief time in a girls life where she is not put on show for the world to objectify and ogle. Its an interesting story about the loss of innocence and growing up.
"A Gentle Breeze in the Village" is another film by the director of "Linda Linda Linda", and in many ways it is more conventional that that film, but it is equally watchable and very emotionally affecting in its own way. Again it focuses on a teenager's life in a time of great change and transition, this time a girls' graduation from 8th grade to high school. A very sweet, very well done film. I don't think its available in the US yet, I bought my copy on eBay.
"Take Care of My Cat" isn't exactly about teenagers - the characters in it are one year out of high school - but it is an incredibly good film, incredibly sad but ultimately compelling, about childhood friends drifting apart.
That's just a few. I'll post more if I think of any. What are your favorites?
"Notorious was nice, but it’s not in the color purple range" "Angels and Demons may get nominated for cinematography the imagery was profound" "District Nine will definitely win for best foreign film it made money and everyone loved it" ~ 8movies
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I just watched the "Up" documentaries, and I'd say those qualify as among the best films about children, teenagers, young adults, and the middle-aged.
Other than that, "The Fall," "Stephanie Daley," "Pan's Labyrinth," "Eve's Bayou," and "A.I." (sort of) come to mind.
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"A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide." - Roger Ebert, from the introduction to "Awake in the Dark" (2006)
Originally posted by 742: I just watched the "Up" documentaries, and I'd say those qualify as among the best films about children, teenagers, young adults, and the middle-aged.
The Up films - particularly 7Up- were the first I thought of as well.
I'm going through my Netflix ratings history and looking for the 5-star titles about children.
"A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide." - Roger Ebert, from the introduction to "Awake in the Dark" (2006)
"Hearts in Atlantis" (not a widely admired film, very underrated)
"Persepolis"
"Thirteen"
"Thumbsucker" (also underrated)
"A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide." - Roger Ebert, from the introduction to "Awake in the Dark" (2006)
A lot of films that I thought of have already been mentioned, but I wanted to add Ghost World to the list. Strangely, I haven't really liked either Thora Birch or Scarlett Johansson much in this, but I thought they were great especially the latter.
For me the film really captured what it was like to be graduating, and not really knowing what to do with your life and sometimes being like Enid in thinking that your above everyone else, but also being like Becky and just conforming. I'm glad that Becky was shown in a positive light too, and not that Enid was in the right for not wanting to conform because I think many other films would have been really anti-Becky.
Originally posted by 742: I just watched the "Up" documentaries, and I'd say those qualify as among the best films about children, teenagers, young adults, and the middle-aged.
Other than that, "The Fall," "Stephanie Daley," "Pan's Labyrinth," "Eve's Bayou," and "A.I." (sort of) come to mind.
STEPHANIE DALEY, YES!!!!
I really want to see Forbidden Games. I found the Ghost World graphic novel to be a whole lot more moving and memorable than the movie.
"Notorious was nice, but it’s not in the color purple range" "Angels and Demons may get nominated for cinematography the imagery was profound" "District Nine will definitely win for best foreign film it made money and everyone loved it" ~ 8movies
Posts: 2714 | Location: nz | Registered: January 12, 2009
^It's definitely an ugly film, and I do feel a strong sense of exploitation and a "let's shock people" kind of thing, but from the teenagers I've talked to that have seen the film, they say that they really understood it.
Posts: 5462 | Location: Kirkland, WA | Registered: March 13, 2006
Heathers anyone? sure it's more satire than anything but this darkly comic gem says a lot about being a teenager and holds up well to this day.
and one of the best films i've ever seen about teen life is "Can't Hardly Wait", that movie was very popular when i was in high school and was to me a very superb reflection of life in high school. I espeically loved Seth Green's character, he was so much like the boys at my high school.
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Praying The Daytime Emmys air on TV in 2010!
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1. "Mean Girls" -- How has this not been mentioned yet?! This is one of a very few movies that I can watch over and over again and still enjoy just as much. When I stumble upon it on tv, I always finding myself watching the rest of it. Yes, the film is not exactly realistic. BUT, Tina Fey's screenplay is the sharpest of potentially any teen comedy ever, and everything in the movie works so perfectly together that it is a joy to behold. In its over-the-top depiction of the teenage social scene, it also manages a more honest (if not more relatable) portrayal of high school life and the meaning of popularity than many other films ("She's All That" for one).
2. "10 Things I Hate About You" -- Another film that is simply enjoyable. Not the most intellectually challenging of films, it is still just a complete pleasure to watch. Heath Ledger's charisma radiates out from the screen, and this is the best work Julia Stiles has ever done.
3. "kids" -- A much, much uglier film than the other two I've listed, it needs to be included for the very real world it brings to the screen. In their film debuts, Chloe Sevigny and Rosario Dawson practically light the screen on fire with the ferocity of their performances. Dawson is the epitome of naturalistic acting in only a few minutes of screentime, but Sevigny gives one of the most gut-wrenching performances I have ever seen, as a teenager infected with HIV going to hell and back so she can tell the boy who infected her before he does the same to someone else. It is the film's intent to shock the viewer (which certainly was my reaction), but nothing that happens seems impossible -- which is why the film is so scary and sobering. People do not want to believe that this really happens, a fact from which this film derives most of its power.
4. "The Edge of Seventeen" -- A flawed film that I find most notable for its presentation of the protagonist's losing of his virginity. The most realistic and well-acted scene of its type that I've ever seen. The film as a whole was extremely melodramatic, putting a gay twist on plots we've seen in any other coming-of-age film, but there will still be a place in my heart for this one. Any (young) gay man will find something (if not many things) to relate to or that parallel his own life experience in it. It is maybe the best of the "gay" growing up films.
5. "Saved" -- Nothing is realistic at all about this one. It is complete satire, sending up devout Christianity and religion. Jena Malone is fantastic in the central role as a Catholic school student hiding her pregnancy from everyone so as to avoid scandal and damnation. To further complicate things, the baby's father has been sent away to "camp" to be cured of his homosexuality. The films characters fall further into the realm of charicature, but the film is hysterical in the truth the satire reveals. I enjoy this one a different level than some of the others.
