Among the family fantasy films and classics watched over Christmas and New Year were two dark films which cannot be classed as entertainments,
The Scouting Book for Boys is a brilliant portrayal of what happens when a silly young girl with hopeless parents make friends and turns the head of a motherless young boy. They remain children who have been led to believe they have become free functioning adults. The setting is a residential caravan weekend retreat site on the Australian coast complete with a good size pool and indoor entertainment. I am not sure what the function the boy’s father had other than organiser and compare performer of the evening entertainments at which the boy is expected to do a song at the behest of his father. The girl’s parents ran the site store, argued and drink excessively. Both sets of parents are content to let their offspring run wild together and separately.
The girl persuades the boy to help her go into hiding using a cave which can only be reached via a pool at the entrance. The boy believes this will provide him the opportunity to commence a sexual relationship and is shattered where he finds the rumours to be true that the girl had a relationship with the site handyman. Worse follows when the girl claims to be pregnant and wants to stay away for twenty six weeks because then her father will not be able to insist she has an abortion. It later emerges when she uses her pants to stem the flow of blood from a minor injury that she has menstruated and is not pregnant although this aspect is not made clear in the film and is my supposition.
The young man and alleged father of her child is hounded by the camp site community, led by the girl’s mother who is arrested at one point for setting first to his caravan.
He rightly suspects the boy knows where the girl is hiding but the boy is able to fool him, the parents and the police that he knows nothing. That he steals food and clothing for girl also goes unnoticed. The police at first disregard the disappearance as just as another teenager off adventuring in the city but take the situation seriously when there are confirmed reports of the girl being seen intimate with the handyman. The boy is used to help get the on site to participate in detailed searches of the area for clues and at one point the father of the girl follows the boy until he is given the slip.
In fact the girl has got it into her head that by disappearing and claiming to be pregnant, (she may have believed she was pregnant by her experience with the handyman), that young man will have a serious relationship with her and not treat her as just another scalp among the teenage holidaymakers who use the caravan park. When the girl gets fed up with her incarceration and sends a note via her friend with the intention of getting the man friend to come to meet her, the boy burns the note and pretends their is no answer. What is worse he tears up the blood soaked pants and places a piece in the motorcycle of the handyman who is rearrested and an initial taken in for questioning.
When the absence of a response provokes the girl to decide to leave, the boy stays with her saying they will go back together in the morning but when she is asleep he smashes her ankle so she cannot leave on her own. He leaves her imprisoned, desperate and cold. When the following morning he returns full of remorse he finds that she had managed to get out of the cave but has died of exposure on the rocks. He takes her out to sea before letting the body sink. The picture ends and it is not clear if he drowns to be with her or returns to the ashore.
Both sets of families were content to leave the young people so they could get on with their own lives and the parent of the girl in particular were not aware of her vulnerability of they were just did not care enough. It can be argues as a story particular to the individual mix of people and circumstances or a more general warning of can happen if their abdication of parenting when children reach adolescence.
The Cement Garden is based on a 1978 novel by Ian McEwan and is also about adolescent sexual awakening although this time between a brother and sister. The family live in a concrete house on the edge of town as the housing a round them is demolished. When both parents die is relatively quick succession the three children, the elder sister, the brother and the youngest, also a boy are left with a dilemma knowing that if they report the death of the second parent the family will be split and the youngest possibly both boys placed into care. They use concrete from the neighbouring building site incase their mother in a metal cabinet in the basement.
Their mother knowing she is going into hospital had opened an account for her daughter to use so they have income and therefore are able to continue without coming to the attention of the authorities and because of their social isolation in terms of location there are neighbours to notice and take action.
The girl does her best but the adolescent brother alternates between babyhood and sexual arousal masturbating while looking at “girlie” magazines and in between a refusal to contribute in a positive way to keeping the family together in terms of day to household chores, cooking, cleaning, washing etc.
The two older children therefore adopt the traditional roles of mother and father in the situation with the normal tensions that will arise in any household. It can be argued that this is a film about what are the acceptable norms within families, what happens within families behind closed doors particularly if the family is isolated in a physical or social sense and difficulties are not picked up at school at school as the critical aspect of the story takes places during the long summer holiday from school.
The films reach a climax because of several factors. The young woman takes up with a young building contractor or someone employed by a contractor developing the waste land between the house and other properties. Although the impression presented is of a sexual relationship with the man involved providing expensive presents and the taking the young woman off on trips in his red sports car, it emerges that this has not been the situation and which in turn is the downfall of the the couple and their situation; secondly the young man is understandably curious about how the children have come to be on their own and when there is smell in the basement arising from a crack in the badly mixed concrete casing for the mother his concerns grows. He may well have helped in the cover up of the situation if he had not chosen to return at the very moment brother and sister reach the point of mutual consolation. He leaves outraged and frustrated at they way he believes he had been treated. The very moment that the couple move from consolation into sexual union, we the audience are aware of the blue flashing light of a police vehicle outside the property called no doubt by the boyfriend. The film ends.
It can be argued that both films are therefore works of art rather than entertainments. Not great art, but good art.
The Scouting Book for Boys is a brilliant portrayal of what happens when a silly young girl with hopeless parents make friends and turns the head of a motherless young boy. They remain children who have been led to believe they have become free functioning adults. The setting is a residential caravan weekend retreat site on the Australian coast complete with a good size pool and indoor entertainment. I am not sure what the function the boy’s father had other than organiser and compare performer of the evening entertainments at which the boy is expected to do a song at the behest of his father. The girl’s parents ran the site store, argued and drink excessively. Both sets of parents are content to let their offspring run wild together and separately.
The girl persuades the boy to help her go into hiding using a cave which can only be reached via a pool at the entrance. The boy believes this will provide him the opportunity to commence a sexual relationship and is shattered where he finds the rumours to be true that the girl had a relationship with the site handyman. Worse follows when the girl claims to be pregnant and wants to stay away for twenty six weeks because then her father will not be able to insist she has an abortion. It later emerges when she uses her pants to stem the flow of blood from a minor injury that she has menstruated and is not pregnant although this aspect is not made clear in the film and is my supposition.
The young man and alleged father of her child is hounded by the camp site community, led by the girl’s mother who is arrested at one point for setting first to his caravan.
He rightly suspects the boy knows where the girl is hiding but the boy is able to fool him, the parents and the police that he knows nothing. That he steals food and clothing for girl also goes unnoticed. The police at first disregard the disappearance as just as another teenager off adventuring in the city but take the situation seriously when there are confirmed reports of the girl being seen intimate with the handyman. The boy is used to help get the on site to participate in detailed searches of the area for clues and at one point the father of the girl follows the boy until he is given the slip.
In fact the girl has got it into her head that by disappearing and claiming to be pregnant, (she may have believed she was pregnant by her experience with the handyman), that young man will have a serious relationship with her and not treat her as just another scalp among the teenage holidaymakers who use the caravan park. When the girl gets fed up with her incarceration and sends a note via her friend with the intention of getting the man friend to come to meet her, the boy burns the note and pretends their is no answer. What is worse he tears up the blood soaked pants and places a piece in the motorcycle of the handyman who is rearrested and an initial taken in for questioning.
When the absence of a response provokes the girl to decide to leave, the boy stays with her saying they will go back together in the morning but when she is asleep he smashes her ankle so she cannot leave on her own. He leaves her imprisoned, desperate and cold. When the following morning he returns full of remorse he finds that she had managed to get out of the cave but has died of exposure on the rocks. He takes her out to sea before letting the body sink. The picture ends and it is not clear if he drowns to be with her or returns to the ashore.
Both sets of families were content to leave the young people so they could get on with their own lives and the parent of the girl in particular were not aware of her vulnerability of they were just did not care enough. It can be argues as a story particular to the individual mix of people and circumstances or a more general warning of can happen if their abdication of parenting when children reach adolescence.
The Cement Garden is based on a 1978 novel by Ian McEwan and is also about adolescent sexual awakening although this time between a brother and sister. The family live in a concrete house on the edge of town as the housing a round them is demolished. When both parents die is relatively quick succession the three children, the elder sister, the brother and the youngest, also a boy are left with a dilemma knowing that if they report the death of the second parent the family will be split and the youngest possibly both boys placed into care. They use concrete from the neighbouring building site incase their mother in a metal cabinet in the basement.
Their mother knowing she is going into hospital had opened an account for her daughter to use so they have income and therefore are able to continue without coming to the attention of the authorities and because of their social isolation in terms of location there are neighbours to notice and take action.
The girl does her best but the adolescent brother alternates between babyhood and sexual arousal masturbating while looking at “girlie” magazines and in between a refusal to contribute in a positive way to keeping the family together in terms of day to household chores, cooking, cleaning, washing etc.
The two older children therefore adopt the traditional roles of mother and father in the situation with the normal tensions that will arise in any household. It can be argued that this is a film about what are the acceptable norms within families, what happens within families behind closed doors particularly if the family is isolated in a physical or social sense and difficulties are not picked up at school at school as the critical aspect of the story takes places during the long summer holiday from school.
The films reach a climax because of several factors. The young woman takes up with a young building contractor or someone employed by a contractor developing the waste land between the house and other properties. Although the impression presented is of a sexual relationship with the man involved providing expensive presents and the taking the young woman off on trips in his red sports car, it emerges that this has not been the situation and which in turn is the downfall of the the couple and their situation; secondly the young man is understandably curious about how the children have come to be on their own and when there is smell in the basement arising from a crack in the badly mixed concrete casing for the mother his concerns grows. He may well have helped in the cover up of the situation if he had not chosen to return at the very moment brother and sister reach the point of mutual consolation. He leaves outraged and frustrated at they way he believes he had been treated. The very moment that the couple move from consolation into sexual union, we the audience are aware of the blue flashing light of a police vehicle outside the property called no doubt by the boyfriend. The film ends.
It can be argued that both films are therefore works of art rather than entertainments. Not great art, but good art.
No comments:
Post a Comment