Glasskar 2002

Glasskar 2002

Glasskar 2002
Glasskår (original title)
1h 16min | Drama, Family | 15 February 2002 (Norway)

User review:

Norwegian director Berg takes an unusual approach in this film about a young teen boy: He makes an honest, artistic film with adult production values that actually speaks to kids. The content may seem a bit grown up, but it’s right where these children live! Sometime in the 1980s, Viktor (Evjen), a sharp, perceptive 13-year-old who’s afraid he will never be as cool as his big brother OK (Lauritzsen). His pals (Eidissen and Stigar) seem to feel the same, so they form a band just to get the girls’ attention, even though none of them can play an instrument. Meanwhile, Viktor knows something’s up in his family. His parents (Kokkin and Kolsrud) are not talking to him, while OK tells him secrets he finds hard to believe. Meanwhile, Viktor notices a new girl (Johansen) and gets entangled with the local thug (Rafaelsen) and his girlfriend (Gjertsen). Basically, Viktor knows far more than anyone gives him credit for. And he cooler than all of them put together!
While the filmmaking itself is profoundly un-flashy, Berg captures the story beautifully. This is rich, meaningful cinema–thoroughly entertaining in its use of humour and unexpected adventures to keep us engaged, and then deepening it with a fairly intense examination of family communication (what the film is really about, as opposed to more obvious themes). Why do adults lie and keep the truth from children? Sometimes this is a little heavy-handed, but it’s never sentimental at all, and Berg gets terrific, natural, edgy performances from the entire cast. Evjen is especially good, making Viktor a very intriguing character we like instantly and then learn to respect (he becomes a bit too saintly at the end, but never mind). It’s rare to find a film about children made with this level of integrity and truthfulness; so keep an eye out for it.

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Memories of My Childhood 1965

Memories of My Childhood 1965

Memories of My Childhood 1965
Amintiri din copilarie (original title)
1h 12min | Adventure, Biography, Comedy | 13 December 1965 (Romania)

Storyline:

Loosely based on Romanian author Ion Creanga’s life as a child during the 1840s.Young schoolboy Ion is growing up fast in a provincial town of the Moldavia region of Romania.Local villagers call him “Nica a lui Stefan a Petrei”.The film offers a detailed account of his childhood with special focus on the relationships between Ion and the various people in his life.The relationships between Ion as a child and his parents,friends,neighbors and teachers are described.The larger context of the Romanian rural social universe of the 19th century is also touched upon.Finally,the film shows Ion’s coming-of-age from an innocent child growing up in an idyllic remote village to a rebellious adolescent dreaming of becoming a priest.

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Les tilleuls de Lautenbach 1983

Les tilleuls de Lautenbach 1983

Les tilleuls de Lautenbach 1983

Les tilleuls de Lautenbach 1983
Also Known As: Die Linden von Lauterbach
Family | TV Movie 23 December 1983

Plot:

The film is based on the autobiographical novel by Jean Egen. Written with a sense of humor, he quickly sold out in France within a few weeks it sold 100 000 copies. This is the story of an Alsatian family from the point of view of a child who does not understand, belonging to a nation he must feel in himself. Recall that Alsace and Lorraine are alternately passed to France, then to Germany until the 2nd world war.

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Jeux d’enfants 2003

Jeux d'enfants 2003

Jeux d’enfants 2003
14 | 1h 33min | Comedy, Drama, Romance | 29 August 2003 (USA)

Storyline

Julien Janvier lost his mother young, drifted apart from his working class father and ever closer to confident Sophie Kowalsky, the Polish class outsider. Their dares game, symbolized by an interchanged music-box, grows ever bolder, regardless of harm to others and each-other. In his college years, it even suspends their relationship and toys with their marriages, but they are drawn back to each-other irresistibly.

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Les aiguilles rouges 2006

Les aiguilles rouges 2006

Les aiguilles rouges 2006
1h 33min | Drama | 10 May 2006 (France)

Storyline:

September 1960: on a purely punitive basis, eight scouts must climb the solid mass of Brévent to 2500 meters of altitude. The so beautiful and so majestic mountain which draws up face them very quickly reveals dangerous. All the techniques of orientation learned at the scouts will do nothing there. The teenagers find themselves delivered to themselves. Lost in the abrupt throats, the eight boys are confronted cold, with the hunger and the fear. A tension starts to reign between these young people of different origins and of which concerns divergent: some worry for Algeria, for a brother left to the combat, or a family threatened of expulsion in metropolis, still the girls worry to like others. The group divides then to find an exit, but one of them disappears in water frozen from a torrent. While young people try to protect itself in a closed down refuge, the others will seek the helps..

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Abdulladzhan, ili posvyashchaetsya Stivenu Spilbergu 1991

Abdulladzhan, ili posvyashchaetsya Stivenu Spilbergu 1991

Abdulladzhan, ili posvyashchaetsya Stivenu Spilbergu 1991
1h 29min | Comedy, Sci-Fi | 1 December 2001 (Japan)

User review:

This non-budget feature film is a kind of spoof on Spielberg’s E.T., made with “Plan 9” attitude. It’s is about an alien fallen down at the fields of Uzbek kolkhoz (agro-cooperative). Hence, many funny and bizarre things and accidents here and then. But the most hilarious thing there is in Russian voice-over made with a strong Uzbek accent. This a kind of sweat-hearted satire about decline of Soviet era in Central Asia.

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Ballago ido 1976

Ballago ido 1976

Ballago ido 1976
Ballagó idö (original title)
1h 36min | Adventure | 1 January 1976 (Hungary)

Plot:

Mester Pista exciting adventure filled vacation with his friends. The boy was a regular trip to the attic, where old clothes, furniture, courtesy of the family comes to life in front of an eventful past. So it takes imagination and reality sidelines of a vacation. (google translated)

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