Fatty Finn

Interesting and nice movie about a ten-year-old boy called Fatty, based on one of Australia´s most popular comic strip characters and set in the 1930s. The plot in this film is simple but if you like the concept of coming of age you would probably like this one too. 

The Cure

Sad, heartbreaking and very well acted, are the words that best could describe this American movie from 1995. Eleven-year-old Dexter (Joseph Mazello), living nextdoor to Eric (Brad Renfro) is new to the neighbourhood and has just moved in together with his single mother. With everyone knowing that Dexter has AIDS (or ”toxic blood” as Dexter says), it´s not easy for him to get friends. The film was made at a point in history where many still believed that AIDS was airborn. But as a miracle, lonely but spontaneous Eric, who is a little older, one day decides to violate his mother´s orders and with ”risk for his life”, (as his mother would have put it) climbs the ”magic” fence between the two houses. What happens then is a story about friendship that will last forever.  

First contact

The Perfect Circle (Savrseni Krug)

Released in 1997, this first Bosnian film after the war is a poetic masterpiece according to the presentation on the DVD-cover. In a village near Sarajevo, seven-year-old Adis (Almedin Leleta) and nine-year-old Kerim (Almir Podgorica) lose their parents in a massacre, and find rescue in downtown Sarajevo in the home of the alcoholic poet Hamza (Mustafa Nadarevic). The two brothers dream about peace but their hopes and dreams are often interrupted by the bombings and the need to search for something to eat. Though Hamza in the beginning is rather hesitating and not willing to take responsibility for the orphan boys, he soon becomes a father-figure for them. This film is in my opinion really a ”poetic masterpiece” and shows with cruel realism the fate of civilians during wartime. The photo is also very good. I would like to recommend this film.

The Burning Secret

This is a film by director Andrew Birkin who in this English/German production sets out a plot with three characters, the baron Alexander von Hauenstein (Klaus Maria Brandauer), the boy Edmund Tuchman (David Eberts) and his mother Mrs Sonya Tuchman (Faye Dunaway). They all three are staying at the ”Winter Palace”, a sanatory or spa where the boy Edmund is having treatment for his asthma in the 1920s of Austria. He soon meets the baron who at first seems very interested in the boy and gives the boy a male companion at the otherwise rather boring place. The baron tells stories from the war and teaches the boy how to swim. But before long the baron´s attention is drawn to Edmunds mother instead, with bitter consequenses.

Dem Vater grauset’s, er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Müh’ und Not;
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.

The father shuddering; gives spur to his steed,
Holds his darling and groans in his need;
He reached his home in doubt and dread,
With-in his fond arms the child lay dead.

The Thief (Russian:Vor)

Russian coming of age-films are usually good. Other Russian films I´ve written about before are for example ”Ivan´s childhood”, ”Freedom is Paradise”, ”Father and Son” and ”The Return”. The main actors are excellent, the photo is often superb and the plot interesting. ”The Thief” is no exception to that rule. A single mother is travelling with her young son Sanya in Stalinist Russia of 1952, when she meets a handsome soldier on the train. They fall in love and move in together in a rental flat. Since his father died in the WWII, Sanya finds in the man some kind of a surrogate father. But instead of a normal family life, they soon find themselves forced into a life of crime.  I would highly recommend this film.

Director: Pavel Chukhraj

Cast: Misha Philipchuk (Sanya as a child) Born 18 Sep. 1988

Year: 1997

Léolo

Synopsis: Léolo is a comic and fearless account of the terrors and joys of adolescence in an uncertain world. It is the audacious study of a 12-year-old dreamer who is convinced he is the offspring of a germ-laden Sicilian tomato. Léolo features a rich and varied soundtrack that ranges from sacred music to Tom Waits and the Rolling Stones.

Read more at imdb.com!

More pictures!

Ratcatcher

An interesting social realistic drama about a working class adolescent boy in the mid-1970s Glasgow, England. It´s slow but haunting and is one of the better coming of age films I´ve seen från England. It´s the director Lynne Ramsay´s debut feature and is shot so realistically you sometimes forget it´s not a documentary. The main actor (William Eadie) is outstanding.