Movie Review SSJ

At home over the weekend, I watched the August anthology I bought last week, which contains two films, “City of Children” and “The Age of Youth”. I was not familiar with August’s big name, and I knew very little about Denmark’s most famous director, except for Lars von Till. So when I watched August’s two films, I realized that there are actually a lot of good directors in Denmark, which is obviously a nag after having tasted them.

City of Children

 The young actor in August’s film is a highlight, innocent boy, eyes always reveal a quiet, soft demeanor, August will be a masculine teenager performance such as a girl in a bedroom, but should have been more restrained girl is often the “devil” to lure boys into the sea of sex, this is “City of Children” the most memorable This is the most memorable part of “City of Children”. It is the director who has replaced the active and passive identities, so the impact of the film on the audience is remarkable.

 Of course, too much attention to the sexual relationship in the film is obviously not the approach of a professional fan, “City of Children” not only has teenage sex as a gimmick, the film’s artistic sense is also very strong. For example, the movie ends neatly: the brother who injured his partner walks calmly into the house, slightly wipes the blood on his forehead, and then walks peacefully with his brother to the window to watch the New Year’s fireworks. The film uses the young master’s overly stoic performance to show his inner struggle, while watching the flashing fireworks, his heart is mixed and messy, and the film stops here, followed by a black screen, even the end credits are not.

 City of Children places the narrative subject on two boys, although they are very different in their values and family backgrounds. But they are still brothers in a gang, and they use the power of the team to be naughty everywhere, and sometimes to steal and rob for money and alcohol. Their group is very standardized, cowardly people are not allowed to enter, only the bold people can join them. Among them, the fat man’s last exit is proof of their “weakness”.

 They may want to make the team as tough as the thirteen in Balzac’s novel “The Story of the Thirteen”, but the ruthlessness of the family boy gradually frightened the other boy, and he began to “hate” the boy’s ruthlessness and cruelty. Soon, the team gradually disintegrates in an invisible wave, after ushering in the “bloodbath” of two former brothers.

 City of Children” is also known as “Kappa”, a flesh-eating fish, which is cruel and violent. The boy feeds the kappa as a pet in a fish tank, and his father lives with another woman, making him distrustful and hateful of everything. Combined with the restlessness of adolescence, his resentment intensifies and eventually manifests itself in the cruelty and ruthlessness with which he treats things.

 The other boy, the reason he is part of the group, just to show that he is a normal boy, because the group has the opportunity to exercise themselves to become “bad”, as the saying goes: men are not bad, women do not love. He just wants to do his best to make himself manly and then fall in love with the girl of his choice.

 The fat man who was expelled from the group was the smallest and weakest, and even though he joined the group to make himself stronger, he was still the one who was bullied in the group after he finally entered it. So he is not the right person for the group at all. He is more suitable to live with his parents in the riverside villa, and in layman’s terms, he is actually a petty-bourgeois element rejected by the group, and members of this class do not allow anyone to infringe on their interests.

 The City of Children” actually depicts a group of children who are about to become the newborns of their respective classes, who show their respective class positions in their teenage years, and who, even though they intend to resolve the disputes caused by class interests, their ideals are eventually shattered. The “bloodbath” between the two boys is an infighting between the two classes. The boy’s family is so rich that his mother only sits quietly and practices yoga most of the time, but this material wealth does not allow his father to return. The only thing that reminds him of his father’s presence is to walk past the piano and hear the Chopin nocturne his father once played there. Lacking the warmth of a family, the boy could only pin his youthful hopes on a fish that could “kill life”:

 Gradually, he finds himself morbid and confused, and suddenly he feels panic because he is a rich patient.

 He belongs to a small family in the middle class of most of Denmark, and like all hard-working middle-class people, he has a clean, friendly appearance. He is also a beautiful boy, he has not experienced any storms in life, and what he is looking for is very simple, a girl who loves him and a career. It’s just that a lot of the time he still acts immature, and that’s a common characteristic of adolescent boys: intense curiosity and nameless longing.

Youthful Years

 The DVD synopsis contains a simple sentence explaining why he left his “old flame”: compared to his old, somewhat formal friend, this girl made him feel the full joy of love. This girl made him feel the full pleasure of love and lust.

 This one-sentence answer is obviously too simple, but sexual desire does play a big part in the reason for the boy’s change of heart. The girl he had loved before had a good family, and a good family environment had nurtured her to grow up to be a reserved young girl. The new girl he met was completely different, the daughter of an ordinary seaman, and her mother was just a waitress foreman in a restaurant. When the boy met her, that is, her body emitted the “physical charm” and youthful glow to impress, he met the girl the first night he fell in love with her.

 The movie becomes quite interesting after he meets his new lover, because his old lover is keenly aware of his change of heart, and she begins to openly express her jealousy and has no regard for the boy’s dignity. The boy decided to make a clean break with her, but this break, the boy simply did not have the initiative, because after the new love pregnant, he still had to walk into the girl’s house to borrow money from her (without telling her the real reason, of course). But in any case, two people with large family backgrounds will not end up together, and the boy’s later escape at the engagement ceremony is clear evidence of this irreconcilable class conflict.

 As in “City of Children,” the director uses another boy as a narrative strand to create a strong contrast: an introverted boy with a mother who is always ill, whose father is outwardly upright and serious, but is in fact a “prostitute” in private. This secret is eventually discovered by the boy, and he angrily takes his mother away from the authoritarian rule of this fake moralistic man.

 The middle-class boy’s relationship with his new love soon ends, but the girl who lent him the money (which he spent on her abortion) insists on being engaged to him, and he resolutely leaves in order not to betray his heart. Engagement ceremony. And by the end of the film, also the beginning of the truck, their hearts are closer than ever at this moment, although the boy is angry at his friend’s betrayal of emotions, the practice of finding a new love, but they are in a boat away from the shore.

 Both films reveal a strong idyllic style, the beginning of the film is also very traditional classical music to bring out, Auguste perfect combination of modern life and classical charm piece, so that people in the modern landscape can still feel the old European atmosphere. His pure, soft images make people feel like they are on a vast lawn, and in a turn, they seem to be taken to a banquet in the Vienna Palace.

 There are films depicting youth, such as “Guess the Train” and “The Hairy Stool”, which are brutal and grim, and there are also films with a warm narrative like the Swedish film “Dog Face Years”. August’s “Children’s Town” and “The Age of Youth” just put the cruelty and warmth of youth into the film, and this combination makes his films show reality without erasing the warmth and beauty of the film.

 If you are a big fan of youth films, or are keen to recall a warm and fun childhood, August is a good choice, but it is also suitable for owners of unhappy youth. Because the film will always arouse your “dog years” in the mischievous, stubborn and cute.