KiDULTHOOD is really one huge jibe at the media. It plays off and revels in the typical stereotypes of youths, blacks and teachers in England (normally articles written by Academia Pricks who've never actually been in the real world) into a visceral journey over a few days, all stemming from a suicide. The greatest strength and greatest weakness in the narrative of this movie is that the film is well...British.
Unlike mainstream American cinema (Hollywood) British Cinema isn't afraid of pulling any punches and it isn't afraid of reminding you that you're watching a film. So prepare to be shocked and disgusted nearly constantly throughout this film, prepare to not understand what the fuck anyone says and prepare to be constantly reminded that this is a film, not real life.
The second and perhaps only weakness I can find with this film is the acting. The central three males, Jay (being my personal favourite, a comic relief character who is actually funny and actually important and doesn't just kill every scene he's in!), Moony and Trife (dunno their real names, haha) are all acted incredibly, no doubt. But the supporting cast, even Jaime Winstone and Noel Clarke, all act so wooden it's like they're doing the scenes for the first time off calling cards. Given the all the money issues this film had, I wouldn't be surprised if they had little time and little takes. This distracts and at points, flat out ruins some key sequences in the movie.
The third 'weakness' (isn't really a weakness for me, mind) is the content of this movie. I mean this isn't Nil By Mouth or The Warzone by any stretch, those films should make you want to throw up, but this film captures on screen extreme violence between 15 year olds, a 15 year old girl hanging from the ceiling, excessive sex and drug abuse (with once again 15 year olds) and so on and so on, you'd never see this in a Hollywood movie. Even better is, for the most part, the actors look 15, whereas with most Hollywood movies where the '15' year olds barely pass as early twenties.
And OH YEAH that ending! After seeing this movie now probably close to four times, if not more, I thought the ending wouldn't affect me anymore, but it affected me just the same, I felt myself shaking, my fists clenching and I so badly wanted to shout out 'NO!' and 'SHOOT THE CUNT!'. Probably one of the best endings to a movie ever, it'll probably piss most mainstream audiences off mind...
Also the editing in this movie is incredible, someone once said watching this was like watching a music video and I think that's a very good simile. The film is littered with crazy placed cameras, slow and sped up footage, jump cuts, fade cuts, cameras strapped to chests and all sorts, for a film buff something edited like this is a true wet dream. It's possible mainstream audiences will find all this 'pretentious nonsense' distracting however.
It's also nice that they decided to use the slang of West London for the movie and never actually explain what anyone says, you pick up what a lot of it means pretty quickly like Clockwork Orange and you can't help coming away from it wanting to use phrases like 'spark in his fucking face'.
So should you watch it? If you're an adult, a mainstream film watcher or a snob this film isn't for you. For everyone else, if you haven't seen this movie, you need too. It's easily one of the greatest teen movies ever made and deserves to be up there with the giants of British Cinema.
Think About It!
-Locke.
No comments:
Post a Comment