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.
Hidden Kisses 2016
Hidden Kisses 2016
Baisers cachés (original title)
1h 27min | Drama | TV Movie 1 January 2016
Storyline:
Nathan, 16, lives alone with his father Stephane. A newcomer in high school, he is invited to a party and falls in love with Louis, a boy in his class. They find themselves out of sight and kiss each other, but someone takes a picture of them. Soon, the photo is published on Facebook and a storm overtakes their lives as they face bullying and rejection.
Taxi zum Klo 1980
1h 38min | Comedy, Drama, Romance | 9 January 1981 (West Germany)
Storyline:
Frank Ripploh is a bit of a rascal: he’s a bearded and shaggy-haired teacher, and he’s gay with a very active sex life and an interest in making films. He keeps his personal life and teaching separate, but he sometimes corrects student papers in public toilets as he waits to score. He cruises constantly, and one evening, he meets Bernd. They become lovers. While Bernd is attentive and caring, Frank gets bored and continues his polymorphously perverse ways. For how long will Bernd and Frank tolerate each other’s habits, and for how long can Frank keep his sexual orientation out of the classroom? Things come to a head during Berlin’s annual Queen’s Ball and the morning after.
Höhenfeuer 1985
Hohenfeuer 1985
Höhenfeuer (original title)
1h 59min | Drama | 30 January 1986 (West Germany)
Storyline
A year on an Alpine farm: an older couple have two children, Belli, who wanted to be a teacher, and the younger Franzi, deaf, and although he works like a man, child-like. Belli teaches him. In his work, he can become frustrated, so when he throws an expensive mower over a cliff in a fit of pique, his father banishes him to the outskirts of the farm, where he uses pubescent energy to break rocks and build walls and cairns. (It’s the tradition of the father’s family, called “The Irascibles” by neighbors, to spend puberty doing this.) Belli visits him and they begin sleeping together. By winter, the boy is back in the house and Belli is pregnant. Soon her parents must know.
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.
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.
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..
