There are comical characters and irreverent wit in the depiction of family dynamics. Indeed, the style is attractive, the filmmaking is hip and the music is cool.
Amidst these familiar elements is something novel and worthy of our attention. An aspect in some of the truly great childhood memoir films (Truffaut's QUATRE CENT COUPS, Soderbergh's KING OF THE HILL, Saura's CRIA CUERVOS, Erice's SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE) is depicted alongside the pop interiors and evocative synth song, the immense weight and mature inner turbulence that a child must bear.
All a child wants is to be loved and to be bigger. Sometimes, neither is achieved, and the only thing bigger a child has is the volume of her burden of existence, feeling so unwanted.
Much of Asia's tone is light, comical, though there is always a depth alluded to , even in the most literal visual sense; the range of colors in her pallette, the depth of angles to every friendship and relationship. What may start out in the spectators eye as a common close female friendship eventually radiates further and further outward, in dizzying orbits of complex dynamics. Every relation is shown in much the same way. A loving mother is also a fashion icon and also a cocaine abuser and also someone who is a blanket of comfort.
There are scenes that depict events that are not exactly real, yet the degree to which things are imagined or exaggerated or happening is purposefully conflated, messy and not to be untangled.
I experienced this film recollecting my own (though non famous and middle class) upbringing, remembering halfway jumping out my third flr window before changing my mind and trying to climb back inside....recalling physical pain from hard sobbing when a relative told me they love my sister more than me.
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| sneaking drinks + blow at the parentals bday party supposedly for the daughter they all forget |
The heart of the film is beautiful dreadlock, a tightly woven knot of causation, brilliance, loneliness, genetically inherited misery and clinical depression. One also feels the presence of a normal child who is so devoid of unconditional love and preference (by any friend or boy or parent) that she can not imagine the point in being alive.
By film's end, we are left with a colorful little girl whose costume changes and passionate attachments have been distracting from a girl who wants people to know what pain lives inside her, under the mask. Maybe if people knew they would simply choose to be nicer.
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| Aria + Dac, her stolen cat and 1 true friend |
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