Last year, I wrote a series of reviews for the “Movies of My
Childhood”. That was a very nostalgic experience, especially given I hadn’t
watched a lot of those films in over twenty years or more. There was something
special about tracking down those old relics, reliving them again and telling
the story of how those stories came into my life. Writing the “Movies of my
Teens” reviews was a different experience; not nostalgic and not as hard to
track down the films, because most of those films were already on my DVD shelf
and although my teens ended sixteen years ago, it still feels like yesterday.
However, I felt it was worthwhile to share the movies of my
adolescence and recall on my experiences for that brief passage of time in
life. Clearly, it was a five year stretch defined by having to go to school. Not
my favourite place in the world, for many reasons, but I do owe my time there
for meeting my best mates, who are still around today. You might have even detected a hint of
sarcasm in my reviews, not at the films themselves, but with just being a
teenager in general. Not saying I had a bad teenage hood, but it just wasn’t
very memorable. The movies certainly were, and I continue to enjoy watching
them today.
Over the time I was a teen (from 1995 to 2000) several
changes took place in the fabric of film, which I feel privileged to have seen.
Most notably, the movies of 1999 were groundbreaking in many ways, and you can
read a special review on that year in movies over in the section “Special
Reviews”. My generation of teens were handed the Slasher genre, which was a
strong but short time in the spotlight, and gave us “Scream” and we can claim
that film as one of our age defining movie moments. Aside from the sub-genre,
the movies on my list were a mixed bunch, and the majority of them captured the
themes of being a teen, that were as relevant back then as they are now.
We clashed with our parents. Wanting to be independent but
still reliant on our folks for a lot, we teens were young adults in the making,
and wanted to be heard. If we weren’t being heard, then hear us scream. This gave
birth to the teen rebellion; challenging our parents, teachers and basically
any authority figure that tried to silent us and mould us their way. This was
most evident in movies like “Disturbing Behavior” and to a certain extent “The
Faculty”, even though that was about an alien invasion, it was still adults
trying to control teens. And we showed them, Ha!
Another regular theme in these films was young romance, and
the fine line between infatuation and real love. When we’re teens, we think we
know it all, and when we believe we’re right about something, we ARE right and
tend to follow that to the end. Despite what others might tell us or how they
try to prevent us, we only push and fight harder when the stakes got higher.
Like Preston in “Can’t Hardly Wait”, following the same girl around high school
like a lost puppy, and then finally mustering up the courage to tell her how he
feels. Or in “Cruel Intentions”, when the rich and spoiled Sebastian, who
sleeps with a new girl every week, meets the first one to get under his skin,
and make him fall in love with her. But it wasn’t meant to last, and that happy
ending was replaced with a bittersweet symphony of sorts.
The other theme playing out in the background of most of
these films, or its main focus all together, was the teenagers relationship
with Life vs. Death; our fear of it, use of it and fascination with it. In the
90’s, we teens flocked to the cinemas to watch the likes of “Scream” and “I
Know What You Did Last Summer”, lapping up the suspense and scares of a guy in
a mask chase girls up stairs, then reveal themselves at the end with a nice
little twist as to who they were. As that got tired in 2000, “Final Destination”
came along to reinvent the sub-genre and launched a franchise that lasted over
a decade.
It’s plain to see I watched a lot of films as a teen (and
have watched a lot all my life), but they didn’t consume my life entirely. Occasionally,
a film was my escape or a way to experience something I couldn’t live at that
time. And as much as that was about living vicariously through characters who
took risks, experimented and broke the rules, I still did a little of that
myself on the side. I never got out of control, and looking back I attribute
that to my quiet sensibility, slight cautiousness, but mostly because I liked
to observe more than participate. I’ve always been a watcher of sorts – hey, I
watch a lot of movies – and I like to people watch as well, through film and in
real life. It’s always been that way with me; usually standing to the side or
in the background, looking at the ones who make the most noise or always act
before they think, and try to understand what motivates them to do so. As I
grew through my teenage years, I started growing into the adult I would become
like any other teen did, and my curiosity about people, and their relationships
with other people, places and things got strong, and I developed a fascination
for understanding the human condition.
Movies have always been an observation of the human
condition, where we watch the lives of others, and experience what they
experience, either because we can’t do the same or it plays on some fantasy or
dream we have but can’t or won’t realise. And as much as I loved movies and
watched them in droves in my adolescence, I wasn’t going to just settle for
fiction and be the guy who watched life happen through a glass screen. The movies
were my introduction to ideas, possibilities and answers to questions I was
thinking about, and would act more like a trigger to fire off my own urge to
develop ideas, explore possibilities and find the answers to my own questions. Once
upon a time ago, people would have done that from hearing stories around a fire,
then books came along. And with the invention of film, starting in cinemas,
then coming to our TV’s and then reinventing the theatre going experience over
and over, my generation got their inspiration from the movies, even if some don’t
want to admit that.
And the reviews you’ve read were the films of my teens that I
connected with the most, and for different reasons, which I explain in each
films subsequent review.
I don’t look back on my teenage years as the best of my
life; it was too brief and in many ways too limited, in terms of being a young
adult trapped in the institution of school with teachers who didn’t always “get”
you, parents who worried more than they should have, and an impatience to grow
up, run wild and live free. Like I’ve said before, in my twenties is where life
really started to get interesting and I stepped into my own to start chasing my
dreams, but I can’t deny that in the teenage years, is where those dreams
begun. And thanks to the movies for planting the seeds of ideas that would grow
over the passing of time.
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