You Should Watch This: Coming Of Age Films
This week on the archive edition, we've got a brilliant trio of lessor known films about coming of age. Plus, a subscriber special, and a new way to help the growth of WAIM.
Hey gang. Before we get to this week’s archive edition, I want to highlight a new subscriber special that we have just started here at What Am I Making. As you know, the work that I do here is financed solely by your paid subscriptions. Unfortunately, over the last few months, our paid subscribership has plateaued.
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Now on to this week’s archive edition.
This piece is from the What Am I Making Archives. It was first published onSeptember 18, 2024. This version has been lightly updated and edited for this posting.
I’ve been a film nerd since I can remember first watching movies. By late elementary school I had mastered the art of dubbing VHS copies of everything I could get my hands on. I used source materials like HBO, UHF TV channels, and other home video formats like laser disc, video disc and Betamax. Once middle school hit, I had amassed a fairly sizable library of odds and ends that ran the gamut from Raiders of The Lost Ark to a stage adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy Of The People, which we had taped off of PBS for my Mom.
In my five plus decades on this planet I have seen a lot of films. Growing up in a household where cinema was sacred, I have essentially been attending a life-long film school since before I could drive. It is easy for me to forget that many, if not most folks out there have not had the chance to see as much cinema as I have. And, even if they have logged as many hours in front of the silver screen, perhaps they have not drifted as far afield into international and underground cinema as I have. While I claim to be no over-arching expert, I am in a rare position to offer a sort of film recommendation series/quasi film school through these pages at WAIM.
With all of this in mind, I am happy to announce our new film spotlight series, You Should Watch This. In each edition of the series I will present a trio of lessor known films based on a single theme. Hopefully, these entries will pique your interest for a new flick to view, or help to spur a discussion about cinema; how we watch it, and why we love it.
For our first edition of the series, here are three vastly underrated gems about coming of age.
The White Balloon (1995)
I recently happened upon this delightful Iranian film on a lazy Sunday morning. The Criterion Channel has a running stream of films called Criterion Watch Now. A couple of times each day, Hannah and I will check to see what’s on, and we’ll play a little game; We try to predict what decade the film playing was made in, whether it is black and white or color, and what part of the world it’s from. It’s a lot of fun to play, and often we get lured into a few minutes of a film we’ve never seen.
On this particular Sunday morning, we logged on to catch the last few minutes of a documentary on the Serbian sub-culture of Northern California. We let the ending credits play and waited to see what was next. Although neither of us had guessed that the next movie would be an Iranian film from the 1990’s, we were both intrigued as The White Balloon began. So, we decided to watch for a while. Then a while turned into a joyous, unexpected experience at the movies.
The film begins in Tehran some 90 minutes before the official start of the new year. After a gorgeous opening shot that lasts several minutes before its first cut, we are led to a mother and her young daughter walking home from the market. All the way home, the daughter is begging for a goldfish to celebrate the new year. Her mother refuses, insisting they have goldfish at home. Still, the daughter persists and cries for a “chubby goldfish, not the skinny ones in our pond.”
Eventually, the mother relents and the young girl and her older brother head off on a quest to secure the chubby goldfish. The next 80 minutes play out in almost real time on the streets of Tehran as the pair run into obstacle after obstacle keeping them from their shared goal. There are nefarious snake charmers, disaffected shopkeepers, and doting old women.
Young actress Aida Mohammadkhan is a vision as the resilient and adorable seven year old center of the film, Razieh. Director Jafar Panahi co-wrote the script with Iranian film legend Abbas Kiarostami. Together, the pair created a sublime, succinct, evocative story of culture, family, and the innocence of youth that transcends language and religion.
Au Revoir, Les Enfants (1987)
When French director Louis Malle was just eleven years old in the winter of 1944, the Gestapo came to his boarding school in rural France looking for a trio of Jewish children. The “students” were allegedly enrolled in the school and posing as Gentiles. Almost immediately, the trio of Jewish children were found out, and the headmaster of the school Père Jacques was hauled away with them. Malle watched in disbelief. It was this harrowing real-life experience that led Malle to write and direct his most personal, and I think most beautiful film, Au Revoir Les Enfants.
When Jean first arrives at his new Carmelite boarding school, he is shunned. He is smaller than the other boys, timid and awkward, and spends his free time playing piano. The other boys tease, mock, and deride him. After a chilly introduction, Jean begins to develop a friendship with an entitled classmate named Julien, that blossoms during a rousing game of treasure hunt. Then, one night, Julien awakens to find Jean praying in Hebrew and begins to learn that his new classmate is a Jewish boy posing as a Catholic.
With this picture, Malle has crafted a tender coming of age story about the meaningful friendships of our youths and infused it with our terrifying history, peeking deeply within our collective psyche. Au Revoir Les Enfants confronts the checkered history of Vichy France, and the question of who may or may not have aided and abetted the Nazis. Malle’s film brings into focus the resolute ardor of childhood friendships as they crash into the terrible realities of life during wartime.
Sing Street (2016)
I loathe musicals as a general rule. I find them to be hokey and hammy. Despite how great the songs from a musical might be - and there are damned few, I would argue - their presentation is always so over the top and saccharine filled that I am dragged from the moment to some screeching revue style cabaret tucked in the dank corner of the songwriter’s brain. And once and for all, can we please just stop with jazz hands?
There are exceptions of course. The Wizard of Oz is brilliant and perfect and you will not utter a word to the contrary. It’s hard not to be charmed by The Sound Of Music or caught up in the genius concept of West Side Story, at least when they’re not finger-snapping their way across the mean streets of NYC.
Writer/director John Carney makes the sort of musicals that nerds like me actually wanna see. Sing Street begins in the fall of 1985, when teenage Conor is informed by his parents that he is being removed from his exclusive prep school and placed in the Christian Brothers school at Synge Street to save money. Immediately upon arrival, Conor is a fish out of water. He struggles with dress code violations, the local bully, and fitting in.
Gradually, Conor befriends a group of motley misfits. To impress an attractive young lady across the street from the school, Conor has told her he is in a band that is about to film a music video. When she calls his bluff and agrees to be in the video, Conor must rely on his new mates to form a fake band, write a song, and make a video. The results are a joyous ride through the MTV era littered with a host of new wave classics you love, and a series of terrific new tunes that they inspired.
Both a musical and a coming of age film, Sing Street manages to avoid diving deeply into the tropes of either genre. The musical sequences are fresh, exhilarating, and largely believable. The young cast is a delight and Carney’s writing and direction are spot on. This one is perfect for a Saturday night by the TV.
Cheers,
Matty C
Do you have a favorite coming of age film? Tell us all about it. We’d especially love to hear about the lessor known ones in your wheelhouse.