POLL 25: BOY'S CHILDHOOD

My poll 25 is inspired by one of my most favorite films of 2008 – MY BROTHER’S SUMMER (2005, Pietro Reggiani, Italy, A++++++++++), which I just saw in the Italian Film Festival. I’m not sure if the film is aesthetically great or not, but I’m sure that it touches me deeply, because some parts of the film really reminds me of my own childhood. The protagonist of this film spends most of his time with imaginary people. This reminds me of the time when I was a child. I liked to imagine a lot of stories at that time. I liked talking to dolls and treated them as if they were real human beings. More importantly, MY BROTHER’S SUMMER has a great ending, an ending which is very true to me.

Because of MY BROTHER’S SUMMER, I decided to make a list of my favorite films about little boys. But there seem to be so many films I like about this topic, especially French, British, Japanese, American, and Iranian films. So I decided to choose only one film from each country for this list. I’m not sure why no Iranian films show up in my final list. Maybe I haven’t watched enough Kiarostami’s films.

I LOVE THESE FILMS ABOUT BOY'S CHILDHOOD. WHICH ONES DO YOU LIKE?

1.ADEUS, PAI (1996, Luis Filipe Rocha, Portugal)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115466/

2.ALPSEE (1995, Matthias Mueller, Germany)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112329/

3.BLINDFOLDED (1999, Matti Ijas, Finland)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0189102/

4.THE BLOSSOMING OF MAXIMO OLIVEROS (2005, Auraeus Solito, Philippines)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479506/

5.A CHILD IN THE CROWD (1976, Gerard Blain, France)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073839/
I wish I could see this film again. It was shown at Alliance Francaise in Bangkok around 1995-1996.

6.DUCK SEASON (2004, Fernando Eimbcke, Mexico)

7.EARTHCORE (2005, Chookiat Sakvirakul, Thailand)

8.FLOWER IN THE POCKET (2007, Liew Seng Tat, Malaysia)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119614/

9.IVAN’S CHILDHOOD (1962, Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet Union)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056111/

10.MUD (1997, Ivaylo Simidchiev, Bulgaria)

11.MUSASHINO HIGH VOLTAGE TOWERS(1997, Naoki Nagao, Japan)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120315/

12.MY BROTHER’S SUMMER (2005, Pietro Reggiani, Italy)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455946/

13.PATHER PANCHALI (1955, Satyajit Ray, India)

14.THE REFLECTING SKIN (1990, Philip Ridley, UK)

15.SOUS-SOL (1996, Pierre Gang, Canada)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117701/

16.SPRING IN MY HOMETOWN (1998, Lee Kwangmo, South Korea)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156386/

17.TSATSIKI, MUM AND THE POLICEMAN (1999, Ella Lemhagen, Sweden)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171851/
I like the relationships in this film very much. The boy here gets along very well with his stepfather. Somehow I don’t like films which show the antagonism between stepfather+stepmother vs. stepson+stepdaughter. I prefer films in which they love one another, such as in this film. If I don’t remember it wrongly, CLUELESS (1995, Amy Heckerling) also has a stepson character (Paul Rudd), who gets along well with his stepdad.

18.URANYA (2006 Costas Kapakas, Greece)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0863041/

19.THE WAR (1994, Jon Avnet, USA)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111667/

20.ZAPPA (1983, Bille August, Denmark)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088445/


--I choose THE WAR here, because it made me cry. I particularly like this sentence in the film:

“War is like a big machine that no one really knows how to run and when it gets out of control it ends up destroying the things you thought you were fighting for, and a lot of other things you kinda forgot you had.”