90's: After childhood, before puberty

Jacey 2021-12-29 08:01:50

90's: After childhood, before puberty

The retro tones without filter filmed with a 16mm film camera, and the intense rhythms sung by Wu Tang, Cypress Hill and Mobb Depp that were unique to the 1990s, laid a decent tone for this semi-autobiographical film. It is as if the celebrity is on the stage, but has not yet spoken, and the appearance has already taken the lead.

In the 1990s, computers and mobile phones had not yet swept the world, and people's social life had hardly been invaded by electronic products. This was one of the important prerequisites for this film to happen, and it was also one of the charms of that era.

Stripping off the shell of the 90s, the film is actually about the growth plight of a poor young man.

Missing father, serious mother (Michelle Williams was originally chosen for the role of mother, but was later replaced by Katherie Waterston due to schedule issues), domineering brother, and depressive family, so twelve-year-old Stevie desperately needs an escape. .

Fortunately, he found friends, and friendship replaced family. He started to skateboard, started smoking, drinking and talking swear words, and began to experience integration, respect, care, and most importantly-release.

Some releases are explicit: Stevie carries a bottle of wine and pours it into his belly; he was beaten up by his brother in the middle of the night, but was threatened not to make any noise, so he had to cover his head with a pillow and beat the wall and shout; Fighting in front of him (the transfer of revenge in the shadow of a violent brother for a long time); quarreling with his mother in the car, shouting swear words to tell her to shut up.

Some releases are hidden. The two major accidents in the film (a skateboard fall from a high altitude and a car accident) both ended with Stevie's injury and bleeding. Attentive viewers may find that Stevie has been extremely calm or even stable after the accident, rather than painful, because whether it is a high-altitude fall or a car accident, the essence is a collision, which also means that more intense force erupts, releases and vents.

The director is kind and cruel. He gave Stevie a temporary antidote (friendship and skateboarding), but once the medicine is over, Stevie seems to have to hurt and destroy (others and himself) to calm down. Going around and returning to the source: Unfortunately, the native family suppressed him; even more unfortunately, the native family also taught him violence.

Stevie stumbled to end his childhood in this way, even though he was stained with blood, because the director looked back, he was always beautiful.

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Extended Reading
  • Dallas 2022-03-26 09:01:09

    The extensive use of the soundtrack is very daring to render the nostalgic atmosphere, basically connecting various passages through skateboarding culture. Are teenagers in the mid-90s fundamentally different from teenagers entering the new millennium? There are good and bad superficial distinctions. There are adults who drink and take drugs pretending to be deep and mature, but behind them are all the distress and pain of growth.

  • Isobel 2022-04-24 07:01:16

    Juvenile theme + independent small cost + debut, this film is already a model of the correct way to open, it is a bit unnecessary to repeatedly nitpick in terms of techniques. California highways, psychedelic parks, teenagers on skateboards are lonely looking for environmental identity and self-identity. The exaggerated short film at the end of the fourth grade is actually the original form of the film, a simple but persistent wish, which is all free and wanton in the camera. The soundtrack is also very characteristic of the times, I like the juvenile temperament that belongs to the mid-90s.

Mid90s quotes

  • Fuckshit: That's why we ride a piece of wood, like, what that does to somebody's spirit.

  • Ian: Stevie, what the fuck are you doing?