Girlhood

I like films like this one. They have purpose, relevance, and seek to connect us with lives we have not lived but can empathize with.

It's easy to see these characters as punks until it becomes difficult to. Writer/director Céline Sciamma makes no effort to judge the actions of the characters and thereby gracefully detaches her ego from the story. This makes for a film watching experience that is more absorption than hard analysis and intellectualization of this protagonist's life. This does not make it any less a provocative work, but allows for understanding we would not get otherwise, as with a camera less subtle.

Yes, it's a coming of age film, but without the climactic moment when the character comes- of-age (whatever that means). Instead the film is about comings and goings of identity and security, and why a person would seek these things.

It's socially relevant in the way it poses the character's environment and socioeconomic influences as factors to her motivations. We get a true sense of her circumstance. It explores low income, predominantly black areas of society untouched by most films. The attention it gives to people of this circumstance and the understanding it promotes is certainly a means to social change if only these sorts of films could reach more people.

Much attention is payed to bodies, skin, and faces, which the lighting often compliments. This is the source of the film's power rather than extraneous camera movement. The fascination here is intriguing as it's not out of lust but… well maybe it's just about the fascination. We are sensitive towards our physiques and appearances, and the camera shares this, only the bodies it shows are not just the characters' bodies but the actors' bodies. Bodies are a source for both power and insecurity to the characters. I don't feel the need to analyze this, only to comment, so I won't say any more.

While Girlhood won't be in everyone's movie watching range, it's definitely worth seeking out if you're inclined.

In 2014, two films with similar titles were released: "Boyhood" and "Girlhood". But they were very different. The first was an American movie, shot over 12 years, with an all- white cast. The second was a French work with a narrative of a few months and a cast almost wholly black.

"Girlhood" - which was called "Bande De Filles" in the original French - tells the story of 16 year old Marieme (a remarkable showing by young Karidja Touré) who joins a gang of three other girls in an effort to find some status, only to discover that this is not the life she seeks. Like "Boyhood", there is no real resolution but simply a coming of age. Céline Sciamma - herself white - both wrote and directed this original view of what it means to be young, uneducated and black in France.

My favourite film of 2014 being Boyhood, I was naturally curious to see 2014's Girlhood. Actually, Girlhood- which comes from France- isn't meant to be the feminine equivalent of Boyhood. It doesn't have the same scope and clearly wasn't filmed over 12 years. It deals with a teenage girl who, failing to graduate to high school, drops out of vocational school to join a gang.

It's not as rough as you would expect for the first half of the film- what we have is an extended view of girls who like clothes, jewelry, singing Diamonds and even miniature golf. It's in the second half when we see a more serious fight (our protagonist, "Vic," uses a knife to remove another girl's bra) and then sex, and insults about being a slut. Instead of the gang being portrayed as a truly destructive force, it's actually more of a sisterhood whose members discourage Vic from descending deeper into criminality.

We certainly see Vic's motivations for joining the gang- she has little future, and is told it's too late for her. Not encouraging. Her home life is rough, too. I can't say I was blown away by Girlhood, but it's a believable drama with a sympathetic protagonist.

Defense business affairs place in 92 area in France is powered by black companies. Young black skins have some dreams too, lost their minds at moment and are applying their own community laws. They are respecting their rules and don't need to discuss long time about to agree many points of views. Without parents to guide them in right way, danger to be recruited by criminal organisations is an eventuality. Some of them will never pass general college school cycles how they would expect. The folies of a young sister would not copy her mother for a richer social life with accepting criminality risks' choices. A story full of expectations, tribal attitudes, feminine community helps and comparison to each others.

All-girl "gangs" may offer female teenagers a safe space to experiment with the trappings of womanhood - a step-up from childhood, but a transitional stage nonetheless. This social dynamic is explored in 'Girlhood', but against the backdrop of an impoverished, ethnic minority community in Paris, where every choice made has wider repercussions for life. Unfortunately, the film feels disjointed, in part because it doesn't seem to know whether it wants to celebrate this "girlhood", or look on aghast; of course real life isn't black and white, but the film seems to alternate between portraying these two extremes, instead of managing to paint a subtler shade. Beyond the fact that life's hard and people (and especially men) are hard as well, I didn't take too much away from this film.