Adolescent Murmurings: The Movies That Shaped My Teenage Years
A Pause For Thought –
Inception (2010, Director:
Christopher Nolan)
The first film of my teenage years to really have a
meaningful impact took place on a GCSE geography trip to Wales. Our teacher
chose to reward us for hiking through torrential rain/enduring youth hostel
food/having to do actual work with a trip to the nearest (read: 90 minutes
away) cinema. While one of the teaching assistants and two students chose Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1, the rest
of us piled into a packed screening of Inception,
so packed in fact that my friends and I had to sit a row from the front,
resulting in much neck-ache and a little motion sickness.
For those that have seen Inception
(and if you haven’t, go and watch it right now!), you’ll entirely
understand both of those problems: watching buildings fold in upon themselves
and entire cities crumble into the sea is a marvellous spectacle, but when seen
a viewing angle some might generously refer to as ‘steep’, it can become a tad
overwhelming.
But that wasn’t why the experience of watching the film has
stuck with me: beyond the physical ability required to watch the film without
feeling ill, the mental power required to pick apart the narrative and splice
it together was something my blockbuster-bred mind had never had to muster.
Different dream layers, dreams within dreams and memories within memories was
hard work for someone who had only recently grasped the notion of a flashback.
The group of us that left the screening two hours later were
dumbfounded, some complaining that it was too confusing, others explaining to
their friends what it all meant, and some just silently attempting to un-pick
it piece by piece before seeing it again (which for myself would be a full year,
as the first Blu-ray I ever owned). Inception
was the first film to make me actually think, and taught me a lot about
non-linear storytelling.
The Little Things –
Brick (2005, Director: Rian Johnson)
Jump forward a year and a half: now a fresh-faced yet socially
awkward sixth form student, I’d taken up a Film Studies module, mostly amongst
people who took it because “It’s a doss, mate! You just get to watch films!” Those
expecting to just sit and consume vast amounts of Hollywood luxury were
probably a little put out when films started getting screened that were:
a) Made before 1990
b) Not in colour
c) Not in the English language
Although, you will probably have noticed that my chosen film
for this era falls under none of those categories, being a 2005 colour
production made in the USA. I could quite easily have chosen Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder’s exceptional
noir classic) or The Long Good Friday
(arguably one of the greatest films that British cinema has ever produced), but
my mind landed on Brick for a very
simple reason: it’s a small film. The word ‘indie’ meant little to me at the
time, and to see a story essentially about three school students caught up in a
drugs dispute was a little jarring.
This wasn’t star-ships soaring across space, globe-trotting
super-spies saving the planet from annihilation, nor the grandiose scale games
at play in Inception, this was a
story that you genuinely believed could
happen at a high school. The characters weren’t clear-cut morally and the budget
wasn’t huge, but the stakes felt as high as any large-scale action movie.
Brick was the
first time I realised that low-budget didn’t necessarily mean low-quality. A
film that cost $3 million could be just as enthralling, if not more enthralling
than the average $150 million flick dropped off the Hollywood production line
every other week. This was a film built on a vision and a desire to tell a
story, not on studio spreadsheets or focus groups.
Falling In Love –
500 Days of Summer (2009, Director:
Mark Webb)
Mark Webb’s ever-popular rom-com starring Joseph
Gordon-Levitt (who the more perceptive of you will have noticed, appears in
three of the four films in this list) and Zooey Deschanel doesn’t seem like a
great teacher of life-lessons or capable of anything particularly challenging,
but what matters here is when I
watched it, and who I watched it
with.
I was seventeen, beginning my first proper relationship and
sat on my girlfriend’s sofa watching 500
Days on a warm summer afternoon. As someone who (despite a widening appreciation
for movies outside my usual comfort zone) was still sceptical of so-called ‘chick-flicks’,
I was not entirely convinced that this would be an enjoyable experience.
How wrong I was: this was the first movie I can remember
watching that brought up the issues I could relate to, at least in terms of
relationships: ‘How can I avoid embarrassing myself in front of them?’, ‘When
does this go from “a thing” to “a thing”?’,
‘Does it matter?’, ‘Is it supposed to be so awkward at first?’. All the
questions I didn’t dare to ask were asked in a way that was light-hearted,
funny and most importantly, honest.
And as the credits rolled and the screen flicked back to the DVD menu, I
realised for the first time that I actually loved someone this way.
500 Days involves
a lot of things I’ve never experienced: I’ve never lived in New York City,
never had a girlfriend who loved all the things I loved, and certainly never waltzed
down the street accompanied by a fanfare celebrating sex (still one for the
bucket list), but the experience of watching the film as someone going
head-over-heels in love for the first time is what has stayed the course.
Reflection – Mr. Holmes (2015, Director: Bill Condon)
The last film to properly move me during my teenage years
came at the very end, two weeks before I turned twenty. In the nearly three
years between this film and the last, I’d experienced my first break-up, had my
first job, moved to university and made a whole new set of friends. For my now
weekly cinema trips, I had the choice between Entourage and Mr. Holmes,
and (like any sane person would do), I chose the latter, taking a seat in a
mostly empty screening to enjoy the ever-reliable Ian McKellen as an aging
Sherlock Holmes.
I expected a fairly innocuous, gentle story with a hint of
mystery, and at first that’s what I got. It was only upon sitting on the
crowded journey back home, fighting the shuddering of the knackered bus to
write up my review notes, that the film really started to have a profound
effect on me. Throughout the screening, McKellen’s performance as the 93
year-old Sherlock had stirred a memory, and only as I paused for a moment did
the realisation hit me. The endearing grunts, the inquisitive gestures and the
gentle gait of the man created a perfect reflection of my own grandfather, who
passed away in 2012.
Sat wedged between disgruntled sixth-form students and
almost drowning in my own sweat, I feared I might just burst into tears.
Sherlock’s fascinating stories, his willingness to listen only served to remind
me how much more time I wish I’d spent with my grandfather, of how many more
stories he had to tell which I will never hear. But more than anything, the
lesson I learned from Mr. Holmes is
to never take anything for granted, to appreciate more than ever the time we
have with those who care about us, to always be ready to take a pause for
breath in amongst our hectic, hap-hazard lives and enjoy their company.
