Bluebird

A few minutes into this delightful film, my partner whispered, "Merel doesn't waste a second." That's right, she doesn't, and neither does this outstandingly well crafted coming-of-age film about a precocious and ambitious 12 year old girl living in Rotterdam. Merel (young Elske Rotteveel) would be quick to correct my last statement, pointing out that she is in fact 12 ½ years old, not 12.

Merel zooms on her skateboard to barely catch the morning train, reads Roald Dahl on the trip to school, aces the oral discussions in her classes, dashes off after school to fetch her kid brother Kasper and wheel him home (he's a Thalidomide child without hands or forearms, unable to walk), then on to her high diving lesson at the swim club, or to the next rehearsal for the musical "Turandot" that she's in, then homework and snuggling up with Dad to watch TV for a minute, but only after she has bathed Kasper and lovingly acted out a story using little figurines to entertain him.

What's wrong with this picture? Well, for one thing, Merel doesn't appear to have a single peer friend. For another, she seems more than a little pushy in asserting her mastery of everything she attempts. When the lead singer in "Turandot" rehearses a solo, Merel - who naturally has memorized the lead part in addition to her own choruses - sings along and must be shushed by the drama coach. In class she's quick to signal that she knows the answers and she's always right, always.

She doesn't act the snob or smarty pants: far from it. Her manner is entirely natural and unassuming. In fact she exudes a wondrous confidence and charm; she's tender and loving toward her family. She is just so damnably competent that she's irrepressible. And she's so busy, her life is so full, that she hasn't yet felt lonely, felt the need for friends. Her mindless diffidence and superior achievements begin to cost her big time with the other kids at school, as she becomes the target of escalating teases and worse.

The story hurtles along toward the climax and resolution of her social dilemma, reaching a conclusion that is fitting and believable. Splendid supporting turns are contributed by Kees Scholten as Kasper, and by a male actor named Anne Buurma, who befriends Merel on the train and nicknames her "Bluebird." Don't for a second be put off by the fact that this little gem was made for TV. You won't see a better C-o-A story for some time to come. This movie should be required viewing in every middle school in America. My grade: A- 9/10

Merel is the "perfect" child - the mother's good daughter who lovingly cares for her disabled younger brother; an ideal student from the teacher's perspective, she knows all the answers. This last trait leads to her being bullied at school. The acting is very good.

The scenes are good enough to serve as talking points, but the bullying may be too intense for many kids experiencing such abuse.

The film also has it's limits. The mother is too accepting of Merel's explanation that her skateboard fell into a canal (thrown there by her peers) and the resolution at the end - not to be mentioned as a spoiler - is simply too simplistic and not at all realistic.

I happened to watch this movie by mistake while channel surfing on MHZnetworks programming on our local cable channel. I cannot tell you how much this movie moved me. This movie portrayed a very different "ethos" (exhibited by Merel and her adopted brother) from what I had in my mind about a young child like this from a European nation. The kind of love, attachment, care and a sense of responsibility to, that Merel showed to her adopted brother is commonly seen in Africa and other poorer parts of the world. She had a deep deep love, commitment and sense of obligation to her brother that is very uncommon in the western world where kids (like her classmates) are very selfish and have this sense of "entitlement" to their own toys, bedrooms, whatever.....

I especially love the scene where she wheels the little boy to the dock by the water to see the boats (She is wheeling him on his wheelchair, singing and they are both soooo happy!). That was a very "heavenly scene", it portrayed the carefree nature that EVERY child should have in this world, not worrying about bullying, family problems e.t.c, but just being a kid and seeing the beauty of nature and life. Unfortunately, Merel's life changes real fast and she starts getting bullied at school. I was especially touched with her somewhat "steel pulse" amidst all this. She is still able to read have the mental capacity to save enough money to buy Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina", not a typical 12yr old's choice, which I think portrays her indomitable spirit and maturity also.

Her friendship with the train passenger was especially refreshing. Many young girls like her usually end up being abused by strangers like the man she striked a relationship with in the train. But, this man was more like a guardian angel to her. Having a love of books, and noticing it in Merel (very unusual for a 12yr old to real Leo Tolstoy)...he embarks on this journey with her, eventually offering her a book that he discussed with her. We need to see more of these kind of relations in our world today - where a black man and a caucasian woman are not portrayed in such graphic and racial terms; but rather in a way that shows that not all black young men are rapists, nor all young caucasian girls are sluts either. What a refreshing thing!!! It is not by surprise that the little gift from the stranger in the train, is the very thing that gives her a break from the bullies. The very thing that she loves (books), is the very thing that redeems her from being bullied.

I loved very much the way her parents supported her. The scene where mom holds her, and she cries and she is babied....Awwwwwwh. Then daddy comes home, after mom has already done so much, and he gives her some more love, but with the wisdom and language that a dad is supposed to provide as a leader for the home. Every kid deserves this lovely home environment, when mom and dad are playing their roles perfectly with no compromise or resentment. It is no surprise that they adopted the dissabled boy, they can handle it, we see it by the way they already handle their own child. I also love the resolve and wisdom the dad portrays when Merel asks about getting a piercing - he is shocked, but wisely suggests starting with earings, such wit!!. He does not say absolutely not, he offers an alternative even if Merel did not particularly like it. A piercing to her was not so much to be a symbol of rebellion, but a symbol of toughness apparently to her bullies.

This movie would be a PERFECT tool to use to address the endemic bullying problems that our children are having to deal with on a daily basis in the schools today. I would love to see more movies like this - No vulgarity, No obscene sex scenes, just a perfect film with a Hugeeee message to convey to families about pain, suffering, resilience,fortitude and true love in our relations with others. A perfect film!! of the movie that were very

Perhaps it was just my major penchant for European coming-of-age stories, but I was glad that at the pivotal third weekend at this year's SIFF I happened to come across the Dutch charmer "Bluebird", an affecting, agreeably minimalist chronicle of one girl's crucial step from childhood to adolescence, in a film skillful enough to distinguish genuine sweetness from saccharine condescension, thankfully sticking throughout to the former.

In "Bluebird", Merel (Elske Rotteveel) might just be the most charming 12-year-old in her city-wide junior high school, and yet she's ostensibly the school's most ambitious pariah. With few friends despite an ample dose of after-school activities, she's an ever zealous, extremely bright student whose naturally superlative work is often, at least to the teachers, inconspicuous. She's on the diving squad, sings in the class musical and consistently gets high marks in school, but yet it seems perhaps too natural for anyone to notice, a physical and emotional overload with no room for exultation.

Along with her busy schoolwork, she also has to embody an almost mother-infant relationship with her physically and mentally disabled younger brother, who's facing another possible stint at institutionalism.

Given, with little time to even stop and catch her breath and less time to be a kid, it's remarkable she still ends up being exuberantly individualistic, taking whatever time she has left to learn and discover something new, and it's this non-conformist and resourcefully intellectual sense of self that puts her at odds with the more vacuous, angrier "cool kids" in her class.

Whether it be her innocently but repeatedly upstaging them in practically every class, her equally graceful ignorance of their tauntingly unctuous invitations or her modest, tomboyish apparel, she becomes the center of their unreasonably cruel string of pranks and lunch-hour hazing. They verge from the more emotionally harming (sarcastic physical mockery and some rather vile name-calling) to the more violent intrusions of personal safety (locking her in the bathroom and eviscerating her treasured bike), all of which strike the earnest, usually attentive school officials and Merel's parents as alarmingly unforeseen.

In turns out that her only sense of comfort is in an English-speaking train-stop acquaintance, whose perpetual smile earns her trust, but it's ultimately his soft-spoken wisdom and the universal lessons that casually nurture her through their brief but enriching encounters. A lesser director might have him blanket a nefarious agenda, but he is ultimately Merel's eye of the hurricane, one to bolster both her self-esteem as well as her mental ascension from a precarious childhood mind to a woman with a firm grasp of herself and the people around her (as well as giving her the film's title nickname)

Ultimately, Merel (and the movie) comes to her character's pivotal crossroad, if she succumbs to peer pressure and compromises her individuality, or if she rejects the school's inanely shallow bullies and strives to draw friends who respect her special, richly defined persona.

"Bluebird" is, inevitably, a very conventional movie (it was previously an after-school special in the Netherlands before going to the big screen), but it's neither a stale or cynical one, just resoundingly pure. It squarely focuses on Merel's point-of-view (she's in every scene), and while it gives the movie perhaps a lop-sided feel when it deals with her interactions with the school bullies (they remain malevolent, and often indistinguishable; perhaps a true statement on the nature of bullying itself, but without any of their viewpoints, this particular aspect of "Bluebird" has a noticeable lack of dimension), it doesn't damper a movie still rich with keen, non-condescending insight on the often anxious and terrifying time of moving from the innocence of childhood to the self-defining responsibility of being a young adult.

And it's all superbly carried by the young Rotteveel, who here radiates a seamlessly endearing mix of a precocious sense of original taste and dependability as well as a youthfully sensitive vulnerability, especially when her tribulations, during and corresponding to the harsher interpersonal situations, can't be easily handled. Most movies would only dare to focus on one aspect to swiftly move the story along, but here Rotteveel deftly adds layers to her beleaguered but exceptional character, peeling each one to show her character's burgeoning maturity with a natural, impressive ease. Even with all the trials and hardships that befall upon Merel, Rotteveel's instincts, just like the simple but lovingly resonant charms of "Bluebird", are resiliently sound.

The last two Dutch films I saw had lead characters that did not make you root for them ('Drijfzand' and 'De Ordening'). That is OK if the movie has other things going for it; sometimes a hero would just be in the way. Unfortunately, those two Dutch flicks had no such other things going for them either.

Blue Bird is different, partly because its makers cheated.

The lead character is Merel, a girl of 12 who has started attending secondary school. For some reason or another (who knows why these things really start?) she gets off on the wrong foot with the rowdy crowd of her class, and from then on she is being bullied and beaten up by that group.

Merel has some average qualities, for example in that the she is slightly nerdy. But most of the time she is being the ideal person: she can sing, she is a swimming champ, she is a very caring and devoted sister to her charming and handicapped little brother and she is one of the best students in her class. This makes it very easy to care for her: you want her to overcome the bullies, and grow in the process.

And this is where the makers cheated: her being so perfect also makes it difficult to imagine her the target of bullies. Bullies usually pick on the weaker kids. Although Merel does defend herself, she seems to have no friends for most of the movie, except in people that are not in her school.

Director Mijke de Jong uses another trick to make us feel for Merel. The camera is often distant, hidden behind backs or staying away from the action, so that it feels that not even the registering eye will step in to help this poor girl.

Elske Rotteveel as Merel believably portrays the lead character in both sad and happy times, and holds her own in both speaking and silent moments. She outperforms her grown-up colleagues in many scenes, making her Merel stand out even more.

All in all this is an engaging TV film.