The idea of shooting a film just a few days each year over 10 or 12 years is a great one and I'm glad I was able to see BOYHOOD in a theater, which I don't get to do much these days: see movies on the big screen. (The Laemmle Playhouse theater in Pasadena had some projection errors, digital skipping which bordered on "give me back my money" annoying.) While the film doesn't live up to claims of being a Masterpiece, it was a pleasant experience that mirrors some of my own life attitudes and the presentation of Ellar Coltrane, as the Boy under the cinematic microscope, was remarkable, or just plain good luck, that he turned out to be such a likable young man.
Watching a three-hour movie about a family feels a lot like watching condensed television, which allows the longer-term intimacy of years of growth or "development", to use industry jargon falsely. In my mind, Linklater has succeeded in taking a television timeframe, Texas split family grows up with hardship and happiness over the years, and condensing it to fit into a movie concept. There is not a lot about this picture that couldn't have been done for television. There is some language and there is some dope and cigarettes and alcohol, but the drama is pretty straight up: narrative cutting between characters talking about life issues and growing up. And this is a big part of life: how parents impart to their kids the information needed to navigate life's ups and downs. Some do it more successfully than others, we do the best we can, etc. Linklater shares what he knows of parenting and his daughter plays the Boy's sister. I think she did a good job.
The film is entirely chronological. We see the Boy (named Mason in the film) fluidly grow year after year and never move backwards. The ceaseless Forward-ness of BOYHOOD is what drives the film and any "message" that is built in. Mason expresses the fact that everyone is constantly telling him what to do in a scene with his mother's 2nd or 3rd husband, and it is here that the difficulties of parenting and being a child overlap. It is so hard not to keep telling your child to watch out for that sharp knife, don't touch the matches, stay on the sidewalk, sit down and eat, don't drink your milk so fast, brush your teeth and get in bed, watch out. We are self-programmed out of fear to forever over-protect and it becomes hugely annoying to the growing-up child. So you back off, try to give the child space. Imagine a camera trying to do the same thing for its subjects. Add a drone or two with GoPro cameras to watch the children for a few hours every day.
Stan Brakhage talked about a child who is filmed every day of his life and a filmer who films, or must always watch that child growing up. There is no "Brakhagian" optical invention in BOYHOOD, in the way that Terence Malick's THE TREE OF LIFE had hallucinatory creation sequences. (I just discovered this: http://www.fandor.com/keyframe/the-secret-experiments-inside-the-tree-of-life after looking for an article I read about an antique lightbox construction Malick used to create galaxial images for that film, which I can no longer find.) Perhaps it's good that Mr. Linklater doesn't raid the experimental toolbox... I do think that BOYHOOD shares something with TREE OF LIFE beyond their lengths. Film and Life are parallel processes. BOYHOOD raises some of the same themes and issues outside of its basic story, and without resorting to lightshow. It is a traditional, narrative movie benefiting from the unusual timequirk of punctuated filming.
Boys experience peer pressure, to smoke and drink and talk raunchily about sex, but some make it through with their dignity intact. The meatgrinder of modern life tenderizes but doesn't always destroy the sweetness of youth.
Linklater's signature approach to film is in the random voices he gives chance to rant on pet subjects, conspiracies, and there is some of that in BOYHOOD. The fluid hand off from one character to the next from SLACKERS (editing/narrative strategy) is replaced by the fluid appearance of Mason from one year to the next and the viewer begins to seek out that moment, when the camera has landed on the next new Mason. It is a fun hop, skip and jump across a life. But it is presented rather matter of factly; no fireworks were abused in the making of this movie. It is a sober assessment of Growing Up but Springsteen did not supply the soundtrack. Many bands did provide songs for the soundtrack: Wilco and Arcade Fire, it is a survey of current pop carnations. It works like television music. Soundtrack available on Nonesuch Records.
