How many times have you reminisced about your boyhood and found yourself smiling when you remembered the day you cried when the ice cream slipped from your hand to your T-shirt at your grandfather's house, or when you were left with a black eye from fighting with a schoolmate who snatched the ball from you?
Involuntarily, you may utter: “Those were the days.”
I often wished I had video recordings of my childhood to know what used to be and what has changed with time. I only have pictures of birthdays, weddings and Christmas parties that I feel no affinity with.
Perhaps that is why I liked the movie “Boyhood” that was written and directed by the American filmmaker Richard Linklater. It is a piece of art that took 12 years to film. From the summer of 2002 until the fall of 2013, Linklater filmed Mason, the hero child played by Ellar Coltrane, from his boyhood to the day he went to university.
Coltrane was chosen from among many children for his innocent look on his face and deep look in his eyes. It was a good choice, for no other boy would have been more suitable for this role.
Linklater began shooting the film starting when Coltrane was six years old until he turned 18. It depicts Mason’s boyhood, adolescence and early youth. His older sister, Samantha, was played by Lorelei Linklater, the director’s daughter. She often asked her father to end her role because she was bored with it, but he refused. She might have been right, for actors may no longer “feel” the role if it takes too many diversions. But her father dealt well with this challenge, for the viewer does not feel for one moment that any of the actors lost the essence or the evolution of the characters.
You see in the film the detailed real lives of members of a family as they grow up year after year. You see Mason turning into an artist that paints pictures with his camera. It was this talent and not the academic excellence, which his sister had, that got him a scholarship at university.
Mason’s memories of his family members is what tells about their characters, for we only see them in his memories. Through him, you get to know his strong mother, a university professor played by Patricia Arquette, and how she affected his life when she married men who treated him badly, pushing him to live in his own world of silence. He was more intimate with his father, played by Ethan Hawke, who loved music and whom he only saw from time to time.
The film won the Berlin Festival Silver Bear Award for best director, and is expected to win an Oscar. It is worth seeing more than once, though it is two hours and 45 minutes long.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
