As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm currently attending a film festival in Montreal. Although most of the films I'm seeing are of no interest to this forum, a few of them are very much on topic. In addition, there are occasional surprises in some of the films where I didn't expect to see any boy but they turn up in bit parts or minor roles.

I'm going to use this thread to give you brief updates on the films I see.

HUNGER (Ireland)
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Amazing film about IRA prisoners doing a hunger strike. A topic that has been treated on film before, but never like this! Most of the film takes place in prison, so I didn't expect any boys. But in the final scenes of the film, one dying character starts to have visions of himself as a boy, and eventually goes into a flashback of a scene from his childhood.

I unfortunately didn't catch the boy's name. I expected him to be listed on IMDb, but he's not. Here's a picture, though:

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GOMORRA (ITALY)
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Another really good movie. This one's about organized crime in Italy. It's brutal and realistic, and yet oddly surreal and absurd at the same time. Running at two and a half hours, it follows the parallel stories of several characters involved in organized crime, all of which are portrayed very sympathetically and, as we come to realize, turn out to be victims more than perpetrators, each in their own way.

Among these is a boy (if I remember correctly, his name is Toto). I'm not sure how old he is. Somewhere between 13 and 15, I'd say.

Not the best picture of him, but the only one I could find:

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There are a few other boys glimpsed throughout the movie as well. Overall, though, this isn't really a movie that I suggest seeking out if you are only interested in boy content. But it's a good movie, so I recommend it anyway.

You can watch the trailer here (but not in English):

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MUST READ AFTER MY DEATH (USA)
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A very moving documentary about a family going through difficult emotional and psychological troubles, all of which is told through audio tapes recorded by members of the family (especially the mother) during the late fifties and most of the sixties. It's disturbing and upsetting, but also incredibly moving. You see the negative effect that psychologist and psychatrists can have on people who ultimately were probably just regular folks going through regular problems, but which were made worse by all the "therapy" they willingly (or unwillingly, in the case of the children) put themselves through.

While the audio tapes are playing, you see clips from home movies and montages of still photographs. There is no "outside" commentary or talking head interviews. It's all archival material.

They had three sons and one daughter. You see them in the movies and photographs, and hear their voices in a few places. Mostly, though, their characters are developed through the mother's accounts of their troubles.

I suspect this will be near impossible to find unless it happens to be playing at a festival near you. It's a very low budget from an unknown filmmaker who just happened to submit it to the festival and they accepted it even if he was completely unknown because they were so moved by it.



I'm just going to copy and paste my review from the profile:

I gave this film a 10 on IMDb. I'm a fan of the director and I think this was his best film so far. The reason I'm giving it a slightly lower rating here is that as a "boy movie" it's not that great. The film focusses on the entire family, so the boy is only one out of four characters. Still, though, this is highly recommended.

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More to come in the next few days.

You're welcome.

Yes, there's more to come. I'm seeing Acné tonight, L'Apprenti tomorrow, Afterschool this weekend. Plus various other films that may or may not be of interest. (Like I said, sometimes there are surprises.)

Profile created.

Do you know who else in the cast beyond Rafael is a boy actor?

Thanks. Corrections made.

I think I ended up changing my rating on IMDb from 10 to 9 for Tokyo Sonata. Although the difference between those two ratings is near insignificant.

I'm not sure how the movie could've had any fewer subplots. The point seems to be to explore the lives of the four family members and if you eliminate any one of them, it no longer works. I agree the second hour is a bit less solid than the first, but it's also where all of Kurosawa's quirks as a director start to surface - the weird sense of humour and taste for the absurd. Since these can be a bit jarring, I can see how that would put someone off, but for me these were the little gems that made it such a pleasure to watch.

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I've been lazy about posting reviews for the other films I saw at the festival, but here it goes:

UN LAC
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An extremely challenging film from director Philippe Grandrieux. I didn't really like his previous film, La Vie Nouvelle, but I was really floored by this one. I don't know how to describe it, really, because it's not really like any other film I've ever seen. Most people will probably hate it, and I don't recommend it unless you have a very open mind about experimental cinema. (At the screening, people started walking out after about 15 minutes and there was a steady flow of people leaving until the end of the first hour.)

It's about a family living somewhere in an isolated area in the north of France. They cut wood for a living. The main characters are the oldest son and daughter (both in their late teens or early 20s) and a handsome young stranger who comes to work with them and falls in love with the daughter. They also have a young brother, who I'd guess is about 12 years old. I didn't even know he would be in the film, so it was a nice surprise. However, I doubt anybody would be willing to suffer through the rest of the film for what little amount of screen time he has.

The only image of the boy, whose name is Artur Semay, that I was able to find is this very tiny one:

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L'APPRENTI
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A French film about a teenage boy who's going to a special agriculture school and doing an apprenticeship on a farm. It's a very nice film, similar in style, tone and pace to the work of the Dardenne brothers. I recommend this film, even if the actor barely fits in the age requirements for inclusion in this database. (He's 15). Although this isn't quite a documentary, both the boy (Mathieu Bulle) and the farmer where he does his apprenticeship are essentially playing themselves, which is probably one of the reasons why the film feels so authentic and honest.

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AFTERSCHOOL
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This is director Antonio Campos' first feature film. He's only 24 years old, but he's already directed many short films and music videos. Though I felt the dialogue in a few scenes was a bit awkward, I'm still very impressed with this film, which is about a teenage boy at a private school who witnesses the death of two popular senior students, and the repercussions of these deaths on the school and on him in particular.

The film's been compared to Gus Van Sant's Elephant and to Michael Haneke's Benny's Video, and while I certainly see some similarities both in subject matter and style, this didn't feel like a cheap copy of those directors' works. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this director in the future.

The main character of Robert is played by Ezra Miller, a professional actor who's had a few TV roles and who's now scheduled to appear in two other films. He was great.

The characters in the film are around 16 years old, I think, so I guess a profile won't be created. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this film. It left a pretty strong impression on me and the more I think about it the more I like it, in retrospect.

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I see what you mean. I guess for me it just wasn't a problem. Though my favourite characters were definitely the father and youngest son, I felt like the mother's character and story was also interesting, and I think all of it worked together in order to make the bigger point Kurosawa was trying to make about family and Japanese society. (In a way, I think this film is sort of a 21st century update on Ozu's Tokyo Story -- I haven't read anything about this, but I wouldn't be surprised if the title was a direct reference to that film.)

Yeah, the Dardenne film I had in mind was Le Fils, though I'm also fond of L'Enfant and La Promesse.

josephk wrote on 27. Oct 2008 at 17:47:


I read the entire thread, however not really anything I can respond to except the usual thanks and I hope to see some of these films at some stage.