Beyond Clueless

Out of the 18 movies I have so far watched at this year's Bergen International Film Festival, Beyond Clueless var the most powerful experience.

The documentary might be describes as a seamless, intuitive flow of poignant moments from well known and somewhat obscure high-school films (in all genres: drama, comedy, horror, etc) narrated with a heartfelt approach to considering the deeper content of these works. As such, it elevates the genre from the cheap and somewhat ridiculed slots of popular culture to become insightful inquiries on what it means to grow up, to go through puberty and to become an independent person. As a 25 year old, my experience of the movie was a violent rush though a huge spectrum of emotions, both unsettling and ecstatic, somewhat like that of being a teenager again, but having my entire teenage life pass through my senses in the duration of a regular movie. What I experienced was possibly some of the most genuine catharsis I have had at a cinema.

The narration was eloquent, intriguing and beautiful. As an MA in comparative literature I am qualified to assess the quality and validity of interpretations and analyses such as those that the film was making throughout the entire spoken monologue, and I must say that I was very much impressed with the writer's ability to make his views quite clear and coherent without succumbing to subjectivism or far-fetched theorism. At a few occasions the narrative and the accompanying images would intensify to a point where I was struggling to follow the line of reasoning, but this was certainly not the case most of the time.

My only disclaimer would be that since the documentary focuses on movies from the 90s and early 00s, it probably won't speak to your heart unless you grew up in this era. The director if fully aware of this though, as I heard him talk about it when asked at the Q&A after the screening in Bergen yesterday. Without a specific focus and certain limitations, the movie would never have been able to make such a deep dive into certain themes, and would easily have become a more general and perhaps vague film-historical survey.

Finally, a serious take on a genre that no one takes seriously. I never even went to an American high school, and yet I feel as if my teens and adolescent years (a vital portion of my life) have been legitimized and made meaningful. If you're a nostalgic sentimentalist in their twenties, like me, you don't want to miss this.

Beyond Clueless appears to be about American teen movies after Clueless up to 2006, but after ten minutes of watching, it becomes apparent that it's actually musings about the nature of the teenagers: they're conformist, struggling with sexuality...and that's about it. This naval gazing is merely illustrated with nearly 200 films (although as you would expect, most of these are simply shots of teenagers walking past the lockers, having sex, etc.).

As this era of teen films is completely looked over in film history (apart from a cursory nod to Mean Girls), it would have been interesting to hear about the making of the films, their influence, etc. Picking a few films to study in closer depth would have made more sense, rather than giving the synopsis of a handful of films (I know the genre is predictable but what's the point in giving spoilers if you have nothing interesting to say about them). It was nice that some obscurer films were mentioned and it wasn't just teen rom-cons (note- there's plenty of nudity, it is very much teens rather than tweens) but there's no actual study of these films as films, rather as a backdrop for the filmmaker Charlie Lyne's naval gazing.

Fairuza Balk's narration is supposed to sound artsy and intellectual but sounds more like she is bored out of her brains.

You'd be better off going to the Wiki page for this film, which lists all the films shown in Beyond Clueless, and picking out a couple to watch.

This filmmaker needs to go back to school to learn how to make a decent cinematic essay!

This movie pretends to be a documentary- in the description offered at the Sonoma International Film Festival, it listed a "superstar cast" of people like Leonardo DiCaprio and Jake Gyllenhaal, when it fact it is merely a boring series of clips from movies those people were in. It's like watching a book report on teen movies. Fairuza Balk narrates in a flat voice with zero inflection that makes me wonder how she ever became an actress. The film makes no attempt at a central thesis, has no original footage or interviews with experts in any capacity, and should not be afforded any sort of attention whatsoever. Please do not spend money on this drivel.

When this documentary is at its best it uses short clips from literally hundreds of teen movies from '90's and early '00's to illustrate the underlying themes of 'high school life".

What I liked most about it is the way it does a kind of stream of consciousness speed read on a bunch of movies I was aware of but never saw. I suspect many of the scenes used to illustrate each of the chapter themes are the best bits of some of those films.

As such "Beyond Clueless" is a personal tour of film moments and themes by the writer. At times there are insights and narrator Fairuza Balk gets her film The Craft featured at the start. Clearly some chapters are more insightful than others.

This documentary reminded my of Mark Cousins - 'The Story of Film' opus. That was an idiosyncratic romp through film history that at times delighted but could also be a bit annoying.

By contrast 'Beyond Clueless" mostly hist the mark in the way that it deconstructs the themes and nuances of dozens of teen films ( 180-200).

It is almost like if you wanted to make a teen film you could pick sequences from the same set of films to make something much smarter than the originals.

I have watched parts of this more than once and will use it as a guide to see if there are some hidden gems in the teen related genres that I should see

"Beyond Clueless" is a dizzying journey into the mind, body and soul of the teen movie, as seen through the eyes of over 200 modern coming-of-age classics.

Unfortunately, this "documentary" consists of nothing more than plot summaries. No actors or directors talking about the films, no film critics trying to analyze them. Just Fairuza Balk talking over the top of film clips, apparently sharing the opinion of one writer (though even this is unclear).

It was great to see such films as "Idle Hands", "Ginger Snaps" and "Doom Generation" appear beyond the more mainstream high school films. Even "Jeepers Creepers", which has little to do with high school at all. (Though they are spot on to call out the gay theme.) So that was nice, even if the film as a whole is rather worthless.

And why the focus on the 1990s? There is something to be said about teen movies of the 1990s, to be sure. But this film never made it clear about how they differ from the 1980s, 1970s or any other decade. What was the point of this selected focus?