Boyhood (Momentos de una vida)
Director:
Richard LinklaterGuión:
Richard LinklaterReparto:
Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Steven Chester Prince, Zoe Graham, Nick Krause, Evie Thompson, Tamara Jolaine (más)Streaming (4)
Sinopsis(1)
La película sigue a Mason (Ellar Coltrane) desde los seis años durante algo más de una década poblada de cambios, mudanzas y controversias, relaciones que se tambalean, bodas, diferentes colegios, primeros amores, primeras desilusiones, momentos maravillosos, momentos de miedo y una constante mezcla de desgarro y de sorpresa. Los resultados son totalmente impredecibles, ya que cada momento lleva a otro, uniéndose en la profunda experiencia personal que nos forma mientras crecemos y nos acoplamos a la siempre cambiante naturaleza de nuestra vida. La historia empieza cuando Mason, un soñador de seis años, se enfrenta a la primera gran convulsión de su vida: su entregada y luchadora madre Olivia (Patricia Arquette) ha decidido que se muda con Mason y su hermana Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) a Houston, justo cuando el padre de sus hijos, Mason Sr (Ethan Hawke) acaba de regresar a Alaska. Así empieza una vida de cambios. Entre una marea de padres y padrastros, novias, profesores, jefes, peligros, deseos y pasión creativa, Mason consigue encontrar su propio camino. (Universal Pictures España)
(más)Reseñas (15)
Una historia de vida sin un solo momento que valga la pena rodar. Ya hemos visto todos esos fragmentos de vida en otros lugares, donde eran un ingrediente de un objetivo superior del guión. O los experimentamos en casa, por lo que son lo último que queremos ver en el cine. ¿Puede ser feliz una persona con una vida tan banal sin caídas y auges, si no ha conoce el dolor de perder a un ser querido o el sentimiento de amor absoluto? Todo el tiempo estuve esperando qué historias Linklater escribiría para los personajes, si dedicó 12 años a la creación de esta «película de la vida». Y nada. Por cierto, adoro la trilogía Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight, que es enfoca conscientemente y al mismo tiempo juguetonamente en un tema específico y lo presenta de manera tal que evoluciona a alguna parte.
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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%
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(49th KVIFF) That feeling when you’re sitting in the cinema watching a movie and suddenly realise that film history is being written.
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This is a film I've always subconsciously wanted to see. Creative patience and the ability to capture in life exactly those fleeting moments that shape us further have produced quite possibly the most calculating film in history, but at the same time I can't imagine it could have been made one bit better. If I were a film theorist, I'd analyze it endlessly. At this point, I want to see it at least three more times.
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Filming something for 12 years and deciding 12 years ago that the movie would take 12 years to make – that takes some goddamn balls. And Richard Linklater evidently has those. Clean-shaven and ready for us to evaluate his latest project. And I can’t help it but give it a full, five-star review. I mean this is something else. The director doesn’t really show me how the boy grows, or rather shows it in a very natural manner and in the end I didn’t really mind at all. I totally grew to like the boy over the two hours and a half. He really lived his life with everything that takes. With happiness as well as with falls. On top of that, his divorced parents Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke put in incredibly amazing performances. Obviously, I shouldn’t forget about Mason either, who is portrayed by Ellar Colltrane. What’s important is that over those two and a half hours, the boy grew before my very eyes. From a boy who was afraid to say anything, into a boy who has his own opinions and who’s not afraid to develop them further. The final scene on the beach was really strong. Life is slipping through our fingers and we must not let those chances that make life worth living get away.
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The terrible disadvantage of festivals is that a film that would otherwise be amazing to someone only comes off like a very solid piece, even if it is a historical endeavor. Linklater has no competition in the subtlety of observing everyday embarrassments and sorrows, nor in how simply he accentuates the beautiful burden of transience in his films. In this, Boyhood is as captivating as the "Before" trilogy. Truthfully, however, I expected him to distill even stronger emotions from the theme of adolescence and the natural transformation of characters, and an even more precise web of connections (unfortunately, some attempts to use motifs from the past feel very forced, such as the Mexican gardener character). But I will not pretend to be disappointed at all. Boyhood reveals the power of the film medium as a fictional memory and the beauty of unpretentious filmmaking language, which demands nothing by force, but rather deserves everything honestly. [80%]
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A truly family movie. Mandatory for all kids, so they can see what unavoidably awaits them and that nobody has it easy with adults, the same way as no adults have it easy with kids. But also mandatory for all adults as a reminder that they were no different and that kids don’t have it easy with adults, in the same way that they don’t have it easy with them. Simply a twenty-year long study of one family “as time goes by"; no big dramas, nothing forced. Quite the opposite: central to it is work with the atmosphere of down-to-earth everydayness without any stress on drama, without coming across too unremarkable, boring or routine at any point during the almost three hours that the movie runs. It’s about the joys and trials of a regular boy; nothing more, nothing less. But the truth is that the closing, high school phase is perhaps too ordinary, the same as due to the scope of the focus some themes/storylines remain loose ends and, yes, Mason didn’t have to be some a douche as an adolescent, but... But even so, I sincerely hope that, like he did with “Before This and Before That" Linklater will return to Mason’s fates strictly every twelve years.
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To write and shoot a three-hour film about the elusive meaning of life is something that only a creator who has already created numerous perfect conversations about it can afford. And Richard Linklater proves that in his portrayal, it is not just adulthood, relationships, and definitive maturity that are incredible, but also a hundred and one feelings of the earliest self-awareness. Sometimes on a more intense string, sometimes on a less intense one, but always from a story that we have experienced, our neighbor on the bench or a friend who flew through our lives seemingly irreversibly influencing it and was never seen again. And it is precisely here, with positive and negative paternal figures, with an omnipresent mother who never says "I love you" yet still shows her feelings countless times, that a boy can grow into something more. Maybe even a man. Maybe just an ordinary dilettante. And maybe someone who wants to reach for a little bit of their own happiness while flying through life.
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I've seen a documentary filmed in a similar way, so the 12 years of filming wasn't particularly overwhelming for me, it's just that the documentary left a much bigger mark on me than this. I kind of watched it, these strangers' lives, and felt nothing at all, no closeness, no empathy, nothing. It's not bad, but it's just a bit too long of a blank. Sure, a beautiful example of the "from life" genre, but I've seen better ones like this. That's why it's nothing special or surprising to me, nothing that would knock me on my ass and nominate it for an Oscar.
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A film that defines growing up in the same way like, for instance, Eyes Wide Shut defines human sexuality. All the looks, the spoken and unspoken emotions, the relationships, the break-ups, the moves, the tears – this is the daily routine of most people in the world, and it's good that Linklater handled Boyhood the way he did. That is, 12 years in 150 minutes and with the same actors, this gives the whole a completely different charge that leaves a mark far beyond cinema.
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A movie that is unique and exceptional only because of the way it was shot. Everything shown in its more than 160-minute runtime is stale (and not only because we experienced it ourselves in adolescence), likewise with some parts of the story, which, without a strong message, clumsily passes by the viewer without leaving a single even slightly significant emotional trace. My hat is off to Linklater for taking on something like this in the first place, but Boyhood lacks so many essentials, starting with more interesting character development and ending with at least one surprising "life" twist, that I'm tempted to talk about a waste of potential and creative time. My thoughts seemed to be summed up at the end by a weeping Patricia Arquette with the words: I was expecting something more... 70%
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Richard Linklater hizo la película de su vida. La mágica y nostálgica historia se estuvo rodando ininterrumpidamente durante doce años con los mismos actores que envejecieron con ella. Esto hace que la película sea única y merezca escribirse con letras de oro en la historia del cine. Y es maravillosa. Sin embargo, no puedo evitar la sensación de que si fuera una película corriente, hecha con un método normal, Boyhood (Momentos de una vida) en ningún caso sería tan buena. Es un poco lenta en algunos momentos y 166 minutos son muchos para un drama relativamente normal sobre la vida de una familia. Lo único encantador y extraordinario que tiene es la forma, por la que Linklater merece todas las ovaciones. Porque esto ya no es sólo una película, es la vida.
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Once my coming-of-age years are broached by the likes of Neveldine & Taylor, you'll be amazed at how the dialogue and even the individual scenes don't have to make sense, how idiotic the supporting characters can be, how ugly and unappealing the protagonist can be, though if nothing but pretty chicks revolve around him, just be happy. Otherwise, Boyhood don’t really have to be approached as a performance for the film to be better, it works on its own, and I can't even imagine the effect it could have on 20-somethings who grew up in suburban Amero. What's most interesting from my perspective on Mason's coming of age is how he is surrounded by weak male characters as a counterpoint to the strong women who are bound to responsibility by purpose, as his mother indirectly essentially blurts out in her last scene. We leave the protagonist at the point where he has his adulthood ahead of him and still doesn't know how to approach it – will he find a family, travel, go to Alaska, finish school and pursue his yearnings for art? Everything in the Boyhood universe would have been more gripping, more coherent, and clearer if the main character had been female, except that it wouldn't have been as good a film.
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It is true that from a film perspective, there is not much to fault in this movie. Richard Linklater is incredibly skilled in terms of dialogue and how to film scenes that would not succeed elsewhere. At first glance, they may seem ordinary. But in this case, you simply observe how a boy becomes a man, what influences him, and how the people around him develop. It is great that Richard took his time and filmed over a period of ten years because preserving the actors and witnessing their real aging and changes over the years contribute to the believability. An interesting way to present a beautiful and believable story about life.
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The movie is extraordinary by being completely ordinary. It sounds like the biggest cliché, but that’s the way it is. The feel-good vibe stayed with me throughout the entire movie, and I was enjoying it to the fullest. Everyone will find something of their own in this movie and identify with different situations. I'll keep to myself what got to me personally - let me just say it touched me to the core. Surprise of the year.
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