Julia Blue

Seen at the Glasgow Contemporary Arts Centre during the Glasgow Film Festival

Cecil says: We wanted to see Julia Blue partly because we had planned to travel through Ukraine in 2014 on our overland journey to Australia, but had to cancel because of what was happening in the Crimea and the east of the country. But I also always like the drama genre when it involves a journalist at work in places that have hit the news – it’s the kind of film like The Year of Living Dangerously, that used to inspire me to be a journalist one day myself.

It also happened to fit in with our schedule in Glasgow so we could go straight to this film from another morning screening earlier.

It was great to see a Ukrainian perspective on things, especially as the country has been out of the news in the West lately, but the Troubles are still ongoing. Having said that, this was very much a coming-of-age film with Ukraine really the context rather than the subject-matter for the film.

Budding photo-journalist Julia helps out at a rehab hospital for men wounded in the war, and there she meets and falls for a guy from Donetsk. The film is a sweet portrayal of developing romance, where Julia is the main focus, she has girly catch-ups with a fellow student, a boy back in her village who fell in love with her years before, and her application to go to Germany for a full-on photo-journalism degree.

She has a big decision to make, tossing up between her romance and her career. It’s the classic dilemma nearly all 20 year olds come up against, so brought back memories of my own conflicts over such things back in the 80s.

But it resonated for me also because of so many reminders of things we saw when doing that overland journey to Australia. The pot-holed roads reminded me of Uzbekistan; the buses and taxis were reminiscent of the same in Romania or Georgia; the buildings could have been anywhere we visited in the ex-Soviet Union; and the family dinner in the rural village reminded me of our own invitation to a family in Azerbaijan.

I couldn’t help noticing that the ‘parents’ looked so old, but were probably actually younger than I am even now, but that can be as much to do with clothes and hairstyle as it is actual ageing.

So I enjoyed this film as much for the memories and thoughts it provoked in me as for its actual content. Having said that, it did make me think that coming-of-age movies were few and far between when I was coming of age myself. I can only really think of American Graffiti, as being contemporary to my life, though I didn’t even drive at the time and had none of those tribal things that were depicted in that 1970s classic.

No, I liked Julia Blue, and it was nice that the producer and director were there for a chat afterwards in the bar. They did really well with crowdfunding for this film, as the credits showed at the end. I wish there were more films like this on the circuit, too.

***.5

Bea says: An altogether very nice film about a young woman in her twenties breaking away from tradition and expectations (her friend's marriage symbolising that very strongly indeed) and forging her own, more adventurous path.

Like Cecil, I enjoyed the scenery and reminders of our own travels through that part of the world, but this film also gave me pause for thought about some of the conflict-ridden times of recent history - in our part of the world this kind of storyline (help out at a military hospital, meet an injured soldier) belongs to WW2 period films, perhaps occasionally to Vietnam or maybe Afghanistan (don't think I know of any though), but for many parts of the world this is very current to a young person's experience.  This is why it is important to see international films...\

***.5

Paper Towns

Seen at the 1930s Majestic Cinema in The Entrance, Central Coast, NSW

Bea says: I was interested in seeing this as I had read and heard that the screen versions of John Green's books were attracting a new, young audience into cinema (The Fault in our Stars), and indeed, of the numbers making up the audience on a chilly off-season weeknight in The Entrance, many were young people in their teens and early twenties.

I wasn't overly impressed with the film however,  The story was rather weak overall I thought, although it did have some nice moments (the road trip sequence is probably the best); the early girl-next-door dynamic is pretty hackneyed, and the "rebellious" teenager the girl next door (Margo Spiegelman, played rather averagely I thought by Carla Delevingne) grows up into is frankly unbelievable.  I did have a moment of feeling rather old when I basically agreed with Margo's mother's assessment of her actions (she's attention seeking and will come back when she runs out of money, or people stop talking about her). Her character is not particularly likeable - the night of taking revenge on people who were in her view somehow involved in her teenage boyfriend's betrayal of her made me feel uneasy actually.  I did not at all like how Margo was being portrayed in the film at that stage, and only began to feel more comfortable when her friends began to develop a more realistic and rounded view of her.

The film is really a coming-of-age tale, mostly of Q, a swotty, earnest young man trying to get into university to study medicine.  I related much more to him than to Margo.  The story's hook or device is to use Margo to introduce Q to a wilder side of his nature, and in searching for her, he finds parts of himself he was previously not aware of, and ultimately comes to value his friendships with other ordinary people all the more.  Other characters in the film go on similar journeys - Radar learns to be open about himself rather than hide, and Lacey finds that who people really are matters much more than how popular they are, or how they look.  These are quite nice messages, and I was much more interested in these characters' developments than I was in the wooden and two-dimensional Margo.

I am aware that the Margo character is basically a device, and is not "real"; but I still felt that the film was trying to focus on her a little too much, particularly as its bankable star, to the detriment of the other characters and storylines.  I may give the book a read...
**1/2

Cecil says: None of the characters really spoke to me, to be honest; not even the straight and boring Q, particularly once he went on that voyage of discovery. Life was really much more ordinary and banal as I reached the end of my school days than anything going on in Paper Towns.

Actually the whole notion of parting from long-held friends and starting new journeys only really kicked in for me as I left university, not school. And of course in 1970s Britain, there was no end-of-school Prom (whereas we did organise a big End of Uni party). That's all changed now and the notion of 'Prom' has made its way across the Atlantic into most UK schools these days to an extent I could never have imagined in my day.

Of course the best ever coming-of-age movie was American Graffiti, made in the 1970s and set in the 1950s. But that had plot, music and cars. It was a fantastic film I could see over and over again.

There was a very middle-American car moment in Paper Towns, when the three boys part and go back to their (very safe and conventional) cars before driving off in different directions. But it had none of the impact of those 1950s car scenes.

Like Bea, I found Margo rather tiresome, and very far from the Robin Williams Dead Poets Society type of character coaxing teenagers out of their shells. She did indeed come across as very egotistical and not someone I'd chase after, however long I'd admired her.

And those last scenes, as Q catches the bus back from New York State to Florida... really! Anybody who has ever taken long-distance buses in the US knows that that would require two or three changes of coach and there is absolutely no way he'd make it back in time to join the Prom fun for the final scenes.

Having said all that, I did enjoy the film and would give it a slightly higher rating than Bea.

***