There are a few great movies about childhood, but they mostly tend to start at First Romance, so around 12 years old (eg My Girl, Flipped). I've never before encountered a movie like this which is basically just the feeling of life at 10 years old, pre-romance, pre anything really. Sure, there's the dreamlike B story to give the exercise some structure, but that's not the point!
I'm seven years older than the film's author, but I grew up in South Africa which lagged the US enough that it balances out. Perhaps you need to be at last forty to appreciate a film like this, not just the texture of the time, but the texture of childhood as so long ago. All I can say is that every minute was a flash of recognition! The alienness of the adult world and its irrelevance to our lives.(Our hero had in his background the sixties and Vietnam, but none of that affected childhood; likewise in South Africa we had war in Angola, and similar political struggles, but again irrelevant to a preteen.) Along with that, no idea what your parents did all day, and no interest.
Fighting with siblings over the record player. Groups of kids sitting in the back of a flatbed truck. The magic of going to the beach, or to an amusement park. Living in a newly built subdivision. Really the only one I think he missed was the excitement of going to a fast food restaurant, for us perhaps a treat of twice a year.
I especially loved the way Linklater singled out the experience of falling asleep in the backseat of a car, in the blackness, in a separate world from your parents, but feeling safe and warm; I still remember the emotions of that exact same feeling!
See it! Really, see it!
I'm seven years older than the film's author, but I grew up in South Africa which lagged the US enough that it balances out. Perhaps you need to be at last forty to appreciate a film like this, not just the texture of the time, but the texture of childhood as so long ago. All I can say is that every minute was a flash of recognition! The alienness of the adult world and its irrelevance to our lives.(Our hero had in his background the sixties and Vietnam, but none of that affected childhood; likewise in South Africa we had war in Angola, and similar political struggles, but again irrelevant to a preteen.) Along with that, no idea what your parents did all day, and no interest.
Fighting with siblings over the record player. Groups of kids sitting in the back of a flatbed truck. The magic of going to the beach, or to an amusement park. Living in a newly built subdivision. Really the only one I think he missed was the excitement of going to a fast food restaurant, for us perhaps a treat of twice a year.
I especially loved the way Linklater singled out the experience of falling asleep in the backseat of a car, in the blackness, in a separate world from your parents, but feeling safe and warm; I still remember the emotions of that exact same feeling!
See it! Really, see it!