Kisses

Non-narrative films can be great, but this is something different. *Kisses* has enough plot and complications for anyone. Every thread is resolved, every theme revisited in this study of the beauty and terror of adolescents tasting freedom. This is one of those films in which painstakingly localized settings and characterization achieve the universal.

I kept thinking of a line from Dennis Cooper while watching this: "And when they kiss, it's so cold and impressive to them." Yes, the kisses in this film are impressive to the characters, but there's nothing cold about them. They always seem to a seal a bond as warm as the sun. And though there's desperation and insecurity, the characters hold back and compensate as they would in real life. There are things we tell ourselves not to show until at last they show without our permission.

Danger and wonder are everywhere, yet the tone deftly avoids the sentimental even when the structure employs techniques from classic melodrama.

There are moments of joy in *Kisses* in which everything stops, like musical numbers without singing. And the use of color makes you wonder if it's the cinematography that's stunning or simply the world itself.