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Screens August 6, 10, 11
In the realm of films about teenagers, realism often isn’t high on the agenda – in many instances, it’s a genre full of stereotypes and wish-fulfilment. This couldn’t be less true, however, of Being 14. The first feature foray for French actor Helene Zimmer, Being 14 is an unglamorous and often discomfiting depiction of a year in the life of three girls in junior high school. It’s a film that captures the angst and volatility of adolescence in a somewhat detached style. As the title suggests, the emphasis here is "being"; Zimmer is less interested in showing us the trajectory of her subjects than simply how they are. It’s a challenging and often unpleasant world that she portrays, one in which girls experience casual sexual harassment in the schoolyard and viciously slut-shame each other in turn. Their homes are not so much refuges as further venues for violent argument. Where a film such as Larry Clark's Kids aims to shock, it is the sheer plausibility of Being 14 that is most unsettling. Few films have ever been so willing to depict the loneliness and vulnerability of the teenage experience.