A middle class German family lives in a nice suburban neighborhood during the 1960s. Very much the typical family with two loving parents, a young boy, Achim, and a baby girl. When the parents go to a party, they leave Achim and the baby girl under the supervision of Monika, the neighbor's daughter. Soon after the parents are gone, Monika ditches babysitting to go out with her boyfriend which leads to a terrible crime in which Achim murders his baby sister by means of suffocation with a plastic bag. Roland Klick's debut feature Little Boy is a film that uses cinema as a means to comment on German society. Much of the film is spent in the aftermath of this crime with the parents and neighbors trying to figure out who is responsible with both Monika and Achim denying any involvement or taking any responsibility for their actions. Klick doesn't offer the viewer any reason as to why the boy committed the crime - was it jealously? was it even on purpose? or maybe he did it simply out of boredom, it doesn't matter. This is simply not an important aspect, as the film is much more interested in the consequences on the family than the crime. Even after the father begins to put the pieces together, discovering the truth about his son, he hides the evidence, afraid of this horrible truth coming to the surface of society. We are shown how society, or a family in this case, is quick to sweep things under the carpet instead of letting the truth come to light because of fear of judgement and responsibility. With Little Boy, Roland Klick uses this story to paint a critical view of German society, and it's one hell of a debut film. 8.25/10
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
|