Boyhood

Linklater’s indie epic offers more than coming-of-age nostalgia, though in reviewing it, I cannot separate the qualities of the film itself from the values I ascribe to it based on memories of my own childhood. It is easy to find in Mason someone who lived the best years of his life a decade earlier and several thousand kilometres away. Perhaps this is evidence of the universality or perhaps the vagueness of the story and the poorly drawn protagonist. In the film’s defence, it can be said that the vagueness of the protagonist is related to his age – his identity is still being formed and, as the youngest member of his family, he has no choice but to be a passive observer of events. After all, Boyhood is not about heroes and their great deeds, as is confirmed by one of the last songs (“Hero” by Family of the Year) on the soundtrack. On the contrary, Linklater tells about the gradually muted desire to be a hero, to play a role in significant historical events and in doing so to find the meaning of human existence. Mason asks what the point of it all is. We will never find out for ourselves and there’s nothing left to do but to accept each present moment as the definitive answer. ___ For me, Boyhood is not just a story about one boy growing up, but also proof of Richard Linklater’s maturation as a director and screenwriter. The film gradually becomes more economical in terms of expression. Linklater uses longer shots, trusts the actors more and better chooses situations and dialogue that encapsulate the transformation of the relationship between the characters, which retrospectively relates to the maturation of the lead actor, who was later able to portray more complex emotions in one take. That doesn’t mean Boyhood gradually eliminated all of the flaws marring the unaffected nature of its content and the fluidity of its narrative. The contrived encounters (the Mexican labourer), the perfection of both parents, or rather the uncriticalness towards them, and the conspicuous presentation of the director’s ideological positions (Texas patriot, liberal Democrat with a lukewarm attitude toward guns and religion) all remain. ___ Despite a certain creative progress, the film – shot “the old-fashioned way” in 35 mm – retains a unique aesthetic uniformity that masks its twelve-year production history. Thanks to the use of the time-lapse method, however, Boyhood is the boldest example yet of Linklater’s original way of handling cinematic time (he previously made films set in a single night, one day or in real time) and use of documentary techniques. The continuously “flowing” Boyhood has an even less distinct dramatic arc than some of Helena Třeštíková’s time-lapse films, which work with more emotionally tense situations and major “plot” twists. ___ However, the film betrays the method of long-term shooting by one person when it repeatedly shows events that Mason is not present for. These minor betrayals of the concept bothered me more than the episodes that go nowhere (the schoolyard bullying) and the empty or repetitive dialogue, which conversely contribute to the authenticity of the finished form. We don’t always get to the point in life either. It may be a cliché, which is something that Boyhood largely avoids, but I will conclude by writing that Linklater’s wager on uncertainty resulted in one of the most convincing films about life. 85% (02/22/2015) (less) (more)