JIFFest: A quality cinematic outing for capital's children
JIFFest: A quality cinematic outing for capital's children
By Tam Notosusanto
JAKARTA (JP): The kids are certainly not left out at the
Jakarta International Film Festival. They have their own shows to
see: movies the festival's organizers have specially prepared for
them. And these are not animated flicks with cute creatures and
heroic figures in fantasyland.
These are films with real settings, real problems and child
characters as real as the ones in the audience themselves.
Take Wide Awake. Set in a Catholic school in a suburb of
Philadelphia, the movie may not immediately strike a chord with
most Jakarta moviegoers. But as its main character, 10-year-old
Joshua Beal (Joseph Cross), steps up to the foreground, we cannot
help rooting for this cherubic, wavy-haired blond.
Joshua takes us inside his school, where he spends most of his
days studying, playing and reflecting. Amid stiff nuns and bratty
boys, he has his closest allies: his best friend David (Timothy
Reifsnyder), and a cool nun (Rosie O'Donnell), who explains the
Bible by way of describing a baseball game.
On the home front, Joshua has loving parents (Denis Leary and
Dana Delany), who are both doctors, and a teenage sister (Julia
Stiles), who is alternately affectionate and mean toward him. But
Joshua's greatest pal and protector is his grandfather (Robert
Loggia), who spends so much quality time together with him.
When his grandfather dies, Joshua's world seems to be falling
apart. Confused as to how he can channel his grief, Joshua
decides to go on a quest: he wants to find and meet with God, to
make sure that his grandfather is well taken care of.
Director M. Night Shyamalan, two years before he became a
household name with The Sixth Sense, shows his preoccupation with
children and the issue of death. Wide Awake and The Sixth Sense
do have so much resemblance, right down to their similarly frail,
tormented-looking young protagonists.
Although dealing with quite heavy material here, Wide Awake
stays light and soft; it wants to show how a little kid handles
trauma without having to traumatize its young audience.
Maintained at a child's point-of-view, the film demonstrates how
a youngster's coming-of-age journey, however bitter, is always
funny, wonderful and magically spiritual.
The Mighty is another film that depicts how youngsters survive
painful and difficult circumstances. Its central character, Max
(Elden Henson), is a humongously oversized 15-year-old who is a
passive target of all taunts and teases. His life changes when he
meets a new schoolmate, the disabled, terminally ill Kevin
(Kieran Culkin). Kevin helps out with Max's reading problems, in
exchange for company and a pair of healthy legs. "You need a
brain, I need legs," he tells Max, and so he enjoys going around
town on top of Max's strong shoulders.
They become an inseparable duo, bound together by their love
of the tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
British director Peter Chelsom paints this wonderful picture of
friendship and mutual symbiosis with the kids' imagination that
they are themselves the Knights of Camelot, battling society's
evils with their swords and armor.
And this film is illuminated by the two young stars'
passionate performances. Culkin is as cute and winsome as his
more famous brother, only he is less superficial and arguably a
much better actor. But Henson is the center of attention here,
bringing earnestness and emotion to his character that makes us
feel every bit of the heartbreak Max seems to be concealing
inside.
The Mighty is made even more special by Sharon Stone's
wonderful turn as Kevin's grief-stricken mother, a performance
that earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting
Actress. And fans of The X-Files may find delight in seeing
Gillian Anderson here as you have never seen her before.
A little Swedish movie called Nature's Warrior is also slotted
to fill in the children's fun time. Part surreal fantasy, part
environmental campaign, the film tells of Kim (Robin Mildoff), a
13-year-old boy who is fascinated with nature and spends most of
his time in the great outdoors.
A dreamlike encounter with an Indian chief suddenly inspires
him to be a crusader for the protection of nature. Kim leaves
home, sets his dwelling in a makeshift cabin near a lake, and
begins his new occupation.
Beginning with picking up garbage left by irresponsible
tourists at the natural resort, Kim goes on to the extremes:
sabotaging animal traps and scaring off potential hunters with
his bow and arrows. Director Stefan Jarl keeps his movie from
being a blatant public service announcement about nature's
protection.
The beautiful cinematography and the tranquil scenes,
characteristic of Carroll Ballard's nature movies, help make the
film a solid work of cinema.
As the festival offers adult moviegoers a wealth of movies
they do not regularly find at their local cinema, these three
films give the younger visitors a chance to check out movies that
invite them to think and feel, a rare treat that should come our
way more often.