14-sai

"Fourteen" is a very disturbing film. It is about children in their early teens, and their attitudes towards life and adults around them. The pace of the whole film is set from the very first frame. The scene moves along very, very slowly as a teacher is asking a young girl student why she burned the house for the school pets. In the next scene, the girl chases after and stabs the teacher in the back with pencils! From there, you simply know that this is no ordinary film.

The film then follows this disturbed young girl Ryo 10 years later when she herself becomes a junior high teacher. Her approach is non-authoritative, unlike the others. Yet, she too is finding difficulty connecting with her students. She meets up with an old classmate who is now having problems connecting with his piano student. Ghosts of bullied pasts disturb them to the present day in their strained relationships with their students. You'll be scared to see your kids this way. You'll be scared for your kids to have teachers like these.

This is a very unusual Japanese film. The strong message is there for the adults, but the delivery style of the director is so painfully slo-o-o-o-ow. There are scenes that stay on for endless minutes without anything happening. There are inexplicable scenes of violence among students that are so random with no coherence to the other scenes.

This is most definitely not for everybody. I do give it the stars for the message it is attempting to put across and for certain scenes which effectively do this. But overall, I did not like it because of its interminably glacial progression and frustratingly incoherent composition.

This is a amazing movie. Many movies these days are not artistic. I was surprised that it had 5/10.It has so many metaphors,you can feel the feeling of every character,and find your self as fourteen year old and a adult.I was the kid that always wanted to be the best,the kid how was like Edgar Allen Poe.You get to see poetically the the opposing side like bullies.Like I said you also get to see your self now grown up and get a chance to analyze your self.In a lot of movies and series(usually sit comes)they don't describe the reality of how a real family or the life of a teen is and this film it captured it perfectly.What i liked about this movie is how artistic they take the cameraman work if i stop it any moment i can take a snapshot print it and put it on a picture. WARNING:Not kind of film you use to watch it with kids,or when you and you're friends when you just want to hang out catch a cheep laugh and eat popcorn this movie is DEEP.