La Haine, et maintenant le désespoir.

La Haine (1995)

La Haine est un film explosif et très captivant. Le film de Mathieu Kassovitz est inspiré de la mort de Makomé M’Bowolé, tué par un policier lors de sa garde à vue. Kassovitz se demande la question, qu'est qu'il est arrivé là. Sa réponse est ce qu'on voit sur l'ecran.

 Dés que j'ai vu l'affiche en noir et blanc j'ai su que ce film va être un film français unique qui aborderait les issus qu'on n'a pas entendu fréquemment en France. Il faut qu'on compare la Haine aux autres films qui choisissent leur histoires d'être percutant; par exemple Kids (un autre film des années 90's), Trainspotting et This is England, qui démontrent les jeune mécontents. Cependant, ces films sont situés dans les locations différents, chacun avec les problèmes specifiques dont chaque film abordent. En ce qui concerne la Haine, la Banlieue, infâme mais ne guère compris, est la centre des manifestations violents qui sont la prelude de l'action qui dégage sur l'écran. Il est important de savoir la situation sociale dans laquelle les jeunes vivent. La pauvrété n'est pas extrême pour les trois personnages principaux à cause du vendre des drogues et les transactions à huis clos. Ils ne portent pas les vêtements et les chausseurs déchirés, vu qu'ils sont les pauvres urbaines. Leurs vêtements déclarent qu'ils viennent de la banlieue, ils sont leur panoplies pour gagner le réspect et sembler cool. Il est interesant de noter que les jeunes de toutes les races s'unissent avec l'uniforme de tracksuits ect. En même temps, ils se separent de la majorité des français.

Ces jeunes, déja s'éloignent selon leur habitude, mais aussi leur language. Ils parlent avec un dialect de verlan. Les phrases courts sont parlés très vite et ils sont répétés. En dirigeant le caméra dans un angle bien en face sur les personnages, la diologue est très direct.

Je peux imaginer que cette façon de parler est très difficile d'écrire comme une scènario, donc le fait que on improvise la plupart de la scènario, il augmente le sens de la spontanéité et de la vivacité. En outre, comme une specateuse étrangère, il est fascinanate de voir comment les classes sociales de la france interagissent. Ce qui est un problème est qu'on pourrait voir ce film avec l'air d'un voyeur plutôt que s'engager entièrement dans le film et comprendre comment la réalisateur décrit un vrai réprésenation de la culture marginalisée des jeunes de banlieue.

Il est claire qu'il est les problèmes fondementaux, au moyen desquels les jeunes vivent commes les sourirs dans les HLMs qu'on suppose d'être moderne, mais ils ne sont vraiment pas. Les architects et les planifiacteurs ont ignoré à faire une communauté, et au lieu ils ont crée des fôrets des appartements très hauts, ressemblant surpeuplés. Par conséquent, dans le film, ils est habitude de voir les scènes de la oisiveté. Il y a un culture qui apparait grâce à l'ennui. Il y a la musique de Hip Hop, il y a la danse de la rue, et la boxe, néanmoins, il y a beaucoup de fumer de dope. Tous ces activités excitantes (sauf se droguer) sont juxtaposées aux espaces très vides comme un désert qui rassemble la oisiveté qui pousse les jeunes pour devenir les criminaux aussi.

Poets' estate

the cutural gestapo

Tous ce qui est liés aux messages et slogans dispersés au sein du tissu de l'environnement de la banlieue mais aussi la centre de la Paris. En écrivant sur les mures sont les phrases comme "l'avenir, c'est nous, le monde appartient à nous/vous" et la poeme qui est tissé dans l'histoire est présentée à nous à la début "ce n'est pas la chute, c'est l'atterrissage." Est-qu'elle est une dissuasive? Est-ils sont les messages antiviolence? Le premier message est intercepté quand les trois jeunes 'branleurs' tentent de s'engager en la culture haute - ils vont au musée d'art pour une vernissage - mais ils sont expulsés de ses propres fautes, et ça montre que la 'future', en ce qui concerne le succès dans le monde professionel, qui est atteinte plus facile en regardant l'art, en lisant en ayant une éducation est loin d'être qui leur est propre.

Or, ce film est dans le passé et le réalisateur décrit un âge où il y a l'éspoir tandis que je dirais que actuellement, avec le résurgence des musulmans poliques, la vie dans les cités est plus tendu qu'auparavant. La communauté est plus fracturée par les ethnicités. La bande des amis qui est composée d'un noir, d'un juif et d'un arab, badine un peu donc la combination de la comédie et le drame marche très bien. Quand ils trâinent ensemble en Paris, il est très cool, alors que les comparaison entre les scènes violentes et dramatiques sont plus exagères. Dans le film le lutte est uniquement contre la système policère. En realité dans les cités en 2015, peut-être il n'est non plus?

*****

Teenage psyche

Beyond Clueless (2014)

In a repetitive cycle of clips 'sampled' from a myriad of high school films, Beyond Clueless opens with a scene we all are familiar with. Opening credits: a walk into the folorn high school, the sun drenched high school, the castle-like high school. The bell rings. A scatter of kids walking through the corridors is shown in another montage.

These kids all have a similar purpose - to survive high school using their individual skills they cultivated in elementary and middle school. Separated by their characteristics and physical attributes, the distinctions between the teens are made clear by the differences in survival tactics.
It is defining moment in each movie when the main characters are seen walking through the locker lined corridor. The viewer analyses their dress, their entourage, their posture and we can determine if they're a jock, a geek, a freak, a plastic, a dweeb, a burn out, or even, - a rare treat: an individual. You can furthermore categorise all of these into two separate groups if you ask the question; do they stand out, or blend in?

The director Charlie Lyne explains...
Charlie: The corridor walk is like the Elizabethan prologue of the teen movie, introducing each of the key players with an incredible degree of emblematic precision.
Right, there’s a certain iconography to it that you don’t fully realize until you see them all together. '

High school movies are traditionally American therefore from a British teen's point of view, the films perhaps are even more reveered as our schools are different so we look on the American high school more objectively. In America, the experiences are familiar, but more brash. The cliques are also similar but more clearly segregated. The confrontation is (eventually/usually) up front. Therefore the ambiguety of British 'senior school' is explained more obviously for the lost british teenager though American high school movies. One's personal angst may be momentarily relieved as one indulges in watching others social strife. One may feel empowered if they see a character or a stereotype they connect with.

It is interesting to find out that the director is in fact 'a 24 year old freelance journalist and filmmaker. He is editor of Ultra Culture, a UK-based movie blog, and home entertainment columnist for The Guardian.' Since he was 13, teen movies accompanied his life, so it is easier to understand where the nostalgic, but critcially analytical perspective derives, from.

Some directors try to use their film  to explain the uncomfortable and forced upon, social mess 'as described by the geeks or dweebs'. Other directors may maniuplate the plot to give clarity as to why some girls or boys ascend up the fragile social ladder, as they exploit the fragilities and insecurities of the students 'below'. Beyond Clueless beautifully collates a sort of tessalating pattern through the series of clips. Similarly we could describe it as a kaleidoscope, as the shimmering and hazy shots, captured by the soft tones of 90's video cameras, fall into place and create a dazling repeated image, similar to some of the drug infused sights of many of the characters, in films such as Dazed & Confused or 'Cruel Intensions'.

The film is narrated by Fairuza Balk of 'The Craft'.

With this knowledge, the film automatically is infused with a more cynical stance, as the overlayed words have an air of wisdom, or a warning tone, as people who have seen The Craft know the struggles our character/actor has endured. We learn very quickly that teenage life is painful, despite the facade of beauty that some of the kids uphold, or how sunny California may be. Nevertheless, the stereotypical teen angst and fustration manifests itself so strongly as the teenager grows more self indulgent (not maliciously, just through inevitable circumstances) and believes that their struggles are unique to themselves. Beyond Clueless rejects this notion as we see so many clips of the same motifs. The film becomes this hypnotic, aesthetic daze soundtracked by the (English) band Summer Camp, who's music, if visually imagined, is a summer day vieled in this thin sheet of sugary baby pink and glittered tissue paper.

With clips from more than 200 films from the 90s - 2000s, Beyond Clueless is an editorial artwork. What is impressive, is the climax of destruction that is the 'problem' in a basic story skeleton. The teenage stereotype is self destructive, as we implode in on ourselves through our insecurities, or our actions (dramatised in teen horror films) become extremely harmful to others. Scientifically the teenage years are when hormones are uncontrolled as they try to connect themselves to the correct receptors, and create the basis for adult relationships. Meanwhile, a conflict between desire, restraint and rules arises, and proves problematic.

Also, the risk appraisal is weaker during later teen years, so the consequences are more drastic we we strive to experiment with experiences - walking blindly through this social confusion of school, and even worse/better - parties. The only beacons of hope are in fact double edged. The infamous symbol of American house parties is the red plastic cup, which is bright and attracts our struggling teens to its content for which they find solace; alcohol - reducing our inhibitions to a mear white line on the ground which the teenage dizzily
steps over. However, in order to balance out extreme angst, one needs extreme drinking, for which the consequences are dire, but again extremely common in Beyond Clueless; puking.

The 80s John Hughes teen movie is a cinematic relic, the 90s introduced darker themes, and harder characters, but the 2000s made them blasé. The evolution of the teen movie carries on in the 2010s, to films like the 'Bling Ring (2013)' where our culture is banale and naive. However, this essay movie on the subject is excellent and knowlegable viewers can rummage through the motifs to see many films they have seen, and have yet to find.

****

Time to Fight!

80s fun is summed up in this concise movie: 3 O'Clock High (1987).

Jerry Mitchell, you're average guy who is one of those eager types who joins school communities, wakes up and has an epiphany: today is going to be one of 'those days'. A frantic rush to school follows, he even drives the car whilst brushing his teeth. Kids, multitasking whilst driving is not advised. 

So it starts off a bad day and gets worse when scenes of Grand Theft and brutal fights with knuckledusters take place at High School, surveyed by the menacing principal. It all started when he patted the back of his soon to be adversary; new kid but also a 'touch freak' Buddy Revell.

oh no he didunt!

No its not as graphic as that, in fact its rather sweet. With basic high school story line and witty humour, 3 O'clock High is one of those rainy day films that's light but engaging. Plus it's like a time capsule, American 80s fashion and style is on full display even if it may be over-exaggerated, but hey maybe people really did wear bright orange scrunchies with a 4 coloured sweatshirts? 

The film deals in stereotypes, which makes it more amusing because its easily understandable where the characters fit and consequences of friendships. The story is mostly conveyed by rumours, the kids all know about the 3 O'clock fight, Buddy Revell is thought to be this demonic boy as the gossip augments the truth.

Also, it has a great typically 80s sounding soundtrack by Tangerine Dream.
 ***

What Twilight should have been like...

The Lost Boys (1987) is like all American 80s nostalgia packed into about two hours of pure entertainment. I know nostalgia is really cheesy when written about on blogs however there are many arguments to the fact that life & society was better back then.

The subtle things like choices of furniture to capture that perfect essence of crazy design and spontaneity if the decade e.g a massive red swatch watch (grandfather clock size) to loud choices of hair and wardrobe for the kids of Santa Monica. Bright oversized shirts, nike sneakers, contrasted the gothic, dark and sombre style (almost new romantic) of the older boys and the main character's love interestsoundtrack was 80s with the saxophone solo in I Still Believe and the rock anthem infused with synth sounds of a Roland Keyboard in Cry Little Sister (don't watch too much of this music video before you see the film). When the younger kids rode on the 1980 styled BMX bikes, I was like dayymmm - I wanna live in this era. That scene strengthened this desire, one that I have had since seeing the bike chase in E.T.

There is even that dusky, dreamy 'flying through cloud' sequence synonymous with 80s fantasy films like The Neverending Story. This picture is actually from The Neverending Story but I just watch the film and you'll see.

The only criticism would be to expand the story as the condensing of a plot is never advisable however as bit of enjoyment it works. The story has elements of high school film clichés such as; the new kids arrive in the midst of a mystery and solve it during a prompt romance, yet I guess clichés are clichés because successful path in story telling.

The Kids are cool; the horror works because you become attached to the characters - no-one wants Corey Feldmen (Goonies, Stand By Me) to die; the film's a perfect 'popcorn' movie - one that you don't just aimlessly watch to accompany you eating popcorn - it is actually worth watching - the popcorn only functioning as a tension reliever (stuffing it into your face when the suspense heightens).

In this review you can probably tell I became emotionally attached and thought I would write less of the synopsis seeing as I saw The Lost Boys with no previous knowledge of the plot.

a hearty **** from Georggiaaa