I watched it again tonight (once or twice a year); and it got me curious re: what new comments were here, if any. I'm both pleased and surprised to see the relative glut of new reviews -- which do NOT add up to a 6.1 rating, btw! -- for this most excellent film. I guess it was released on video....... FINALLY!!!?
In a comment dated 18 June 2001, Nozz wrote: Melville said that "Moby Dick" was only "a sketch of a sketch"... the book illuminated so many avenues that it never took time to explore. So too with "Four Friends." ... So it's a little unfair, but there's a sense of missed opportunity because everything in the movie is so good that it seems to deserve more attention.
I think that's part of the point/its poignancy and bittersweet sense of loss at the end, which is what makes it so evocative; as so is life -- small moments of apparently frivolous experience/choices/opportunities -- which will rarely, if ever, come again; and certainly not while we are the same. We always think of/were taught the 20/20 hindsight bit; but there's NO guarantee path "x" would have been more ideal/fruitfil/ better than path "y"! One can never KNOW w/o taking the path/making (whatever) choice -- Talking about good things here, not stupid things like OD'ing on some lame chemical or suicide! Can't speak for today's youth -- as it is indeed a different, more cynical world! -- but given the idealism, hope, and energy inherent in the 60s youth, who wanted to LIVE (after so much repression)...... and experience everything, a legacy of feeling loss was inevitable. There's just not enough time being young. I never grew tired of being young, as long as my body was! That's not to say many/most did not have many good times, even wonderful lives and families. But the ideals we hoped for the world certainly didn't materialize; and few realized it in their personal lives, I suspect, at least on the braod scale we hoped. And for that, we greive; for few have the choice. "Four Friends," as does few films, conveys that loss so splendidly and the rewards of the remaining, though not ideal, friendships -- whose importance in our lives is timeless. And yeah, it always elicits tears and longing for what could have been! Someday it will be recognized, I hope, for the great film it is!
