Movie Review One Hundred Days After Childhood

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1975 – spoiler alerts. Directed by Sergey Solovev The second of nine movie screened at the 10th Worldwise Learning Centre International Movie festival was this Russian coming of age drama set in a school summer Camp for young art students. I have seen several American Summer Camp movies, usually involving children rebelling against the establishment, finding first love, fighting, playing elaborate pranks, overcoming a few phobias and ultimately emerging as better, more mature human beings. Actual Summer camp culture always strikes me as a living Hell, parents sending the kid off to be free of them, imposed conformity and scouting / Christian values, being obliged to sing Kumbaya round the camp fire and endless counselling sessions. I liked the freedom of Summer, being free from school, often holidaying with the family, not apart from them. Summer to me meant less school, not more. The camp in the film is a Russian One, run by teachers who seem rather unknowing and negligent. One tutor arrives and has a boy who has been before explain to him who the student are, allowing a long burst of exposition as they spy on the cast from a bird watcher’s hide, with binoculars, pigeon holing everyone into stereotyping definitions of who they are. Mitya, the sullen miserable thuggish boy is an intensely unlikeable misanthrope, (someone who hates everyone) described as such and then proving just so. A girl, Lena Ergolina is the love interest, spelt out by depicting her in Impressionist artistic Muse poses with flower poses with a book on romantic French love letters in her hand, an image repeated several times and featured on the movie poster too. We often only know what characters think and feel because they directly spell it out to us. As an art study the class are told about the mystery of the enigmatic Mona Lisa smile, from which point on the assumptions about who really loves who unravels. Mitya learn that Lena Ergolina never really loved him, but Sonya Zagremuhina who he used to get information on Lena does love him. We only really learn this when Sonya Zagremuhina tells us as much. The teachers fail to see tension in the camp. They leave Mitya lying on a beach alone getting too much Sun, ready for the heat-stroke fainting that he mistakes for love when the last person he sees before collapsing is Lena The medics tell Mitya heatstroke isn’t dangerous. It is and it can kill people. Two boys dancing by the pool fall in and nearly drown. (Boys dance with boys and girl with girls indicating separation of the genders) Later Mitya tries to get attention and pity by wearing a plaster-cast on his leg but the teachers never question how he might have injured it or gained treatment for it. Later the unsupervised swimming pool entrance area is the main meeting place where characters meet to share their real feeling for one another. Later still, realizing Mitya and another boy are close to getting violent with one another they end them off together in a storm unsupervised to fetch a heavy milk cart together as it will involve them having to work together. When the boy still fight violently on the trip no one is there to break it up. The boys just arbitrarily decide their fight is futile and top it without any real incentive. It is simply scripted that they stop at that point, Fragmented narrative, lots of tell not show exposition, rather flat acting, and the main plot theme being rather over-stated, plus a central character who I not at all likeable let alone loveable made this a less appealing film than average for me. It I till invaluable that groups like Worldwise get such movie noticed and shared for everyone. Youtube - Alan Sherman’s comedy song Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah – probably the best summary of Summer Camp culture ever. Arthur Chappell