“Girls” by Valeria Guy Germanika is, at first glance, a good documentary, acutely social work. But only at first glance.
The camera work in the film is practically nothing - Guy Germanika just shoots the faces and various actions of the main characters and their closest entourage. For the sake of understanding, for 48 minutes of the film, you will have to watch through the prism of a twitching camera for ordinary teenage girls and an unremarkable landscape, like a subway station. No non-standard camera receptions, only the camera in the person of Valeria Germanika, walking behind the heroines.
On the other hand, despite the poor shooting, the work turned out to be quite interesting. You will see the youth of that time. And no, it will not be young scientists, nor teenagers helping grandmothers cross the road, nor schoolchildren reading Lev Nikolaevich, nor young people who dream of flying into space or exploring Mars. You will be shown the real young people: drinking, smoking and swearing. And eight-graders will do it. Abomination and decadence beats over the edge, and society, instead of solving the problem, prefers to live in its own world and say: lie, not like our youth! we all know Dostoevsky by heart and only five students, and the screen shows do not understand who, do not understand where he came from! But the screen shows quite average schoolchildren, quite average drinking, smoking and swearing.
The work is also remarkable for being such a monument, if you can say so, of culture. A culture that unfortunately still exists. I amused a teenager of 14 years with a hat on which a plant is painted.
Documentary? Yeah. Sophisticated? Nope. And the whole reason is that the director doesn't show it in a uniquely bad light. We, the audience, see what is happening as a statement of fact. It is like showing an orphanage in a neutral light, that is, it seems to be acutely social, but in fact just an orphanage; neither good nor bad. Moreover, due to the positive music at the end, it may even seem that Valeria Guy Germanika sees nothing wrong with the documentary. They say this is not degradation of the younger generation, it is just girls in this way "enter adulthood."
Therefore, taking into account the positive and negative aspects and given the uncertainty of the film, I make an intermediate assessment.
5 out of 10
The films of Valeria Guy Germanika have two problems:
1. The movies themselves
2. Their critics
I don’t like her work, but not because I don’t agree with him, but because I don’t see Valeria as a director – she shoots what falls under the camera lens, without a single composition or any aesthetics. But it takes away the truth.
Most authors of negative reviews shout that at the age of 14 they were sitting at home, playing with toys, reading books, and in general were smart smart smart smart girls. Well done. But not everyone was like that, the lion’s share of teenagers lived as the heroines of the film. They sit in the entrances with cigarettes and berries, swear, rebel, discuss their problems as they can, and all this to seem older, to quickly join the world of adults (the episode with obtaining a passport is very indicative). And let girls do what's socially negatively labeled, that's how they live their lives. In addition, they are very bright in their emotions, they sincerely love and are friends (the scene with hysterics and vein cutting). Teenagers are shown as they are in their "natural habitat."
Adults do not like this film due to the fact that children are not shown as they want to see them, it is difficult to imagine your beloved child in the role of Katya or Sveta, that’s just have to. Unfortunately (or fortunately) many children go through similar experiences that teach their lessons and are remembered for life. And when parents accept this fact, they will be able to finally break the idealized image of a teenager, imposed in some ancient times, they will understand that the film “Girls” shows the life of children from the most ordinary families from the most ordinary areas, and it can be seen with your own eyes if you take off rose-colored glasses and go to any sleeping area of a big city or come to a small town in Russia.
Although I agree with the film, I don’t like it. It's not a documentary, although it shows life in the flesh - it's a slicing of footage captured on camera walking around the neighborhood. When I watch a film, I want to see a beautiful composition, a meaningful idea and a general integrity, which is not a word at all. To show the dark realities of life that no one wants to admit, it is not necessary to do so tastelessly and carelessly (Balabanov, Tverdovsky vivid examples). Yes, it is true, and it should be shown to the world, but not in such an unkempt way.
Whatever one might call what they saw on the screen, I can say one thing – the film made more than 10 years ago will definitely be relevant in the near future.
A few years ago, I went through the same thing, and if I didn’t recognize myself in these characters, I would have experienced a real disgust when watching. To be honest, it made me smile sometimes, and sometimes quietly terrified and blush with shame. Valeria Gai Germanika depicted reality not caricaturedly, but absolutely accurately. Meetings with cheap canned cocktails in the porches, absurd quarrels, drunken tears, reconciliations, discussions at the stall "who, what and how much" - all this is painfully familiar to the heart, and therefore interesting. Interesting in its truthfulness. Interestingly, there is no falsehood. The films of Germany are not for daily viewing and not for everyone.
In no case can we say that the shown is normal and there is nothing to be surprised by. It just happens to teenagers and it's hard to do anything about it.
How the public would react to the film was predictable. After all, there is no familiar fairy tale, adults it seems exaggerated (and it can be understood: what mother would want to believe that her exemplary daughter can also sit in the entrance with a joint and swear at every word?), and understand the film only those who have gone through all this.
There is nothing to learn, nothing to admire, nothing to think about. That’s probably the main problem.
Even if mom looks at it, she'll never believe it's her daughter.
I was looking for a movie for the evening: grounded, vital, just served, so I decided to study the list of works by Guy Germanica. Despite the sometimes serious behavioral and situational hyperbolism in those of her works with which I am familiar, there is something in them that allows you to penetrate and throw away the tinsel to understand the general idea.
But with this movie, it was different from the beginning. I also went to a regular school with a bunch of kids from less well-off backgrounds, and I can tell you that every story in this tape is 100 percent familiar to me before every sentence. Perhaps something similar is happening with teenagers now, but in a completely different reality. Immediately conveyed exactly the atmosphere in which we brewed while studying in grades 7-8-9, cheap cocktails at a very affordable price, the entrances in which you promise to clean up and not make noise, disputes about who drinks how much, piercing, reasoning about life, all this concerned if not personally me, then happened right here - next to me.
And what to say, it was very interesting after almost two decades to see how it was then, and at the same time feeling something native, to experience a slight horror of what is happening.
After watching Everybody Dies and I Stay, also a Germanic film, I thought it couldn’t be worse. I was wrong. Maybe. This “creativity” is much worse, but the only thing that can justify it is that the film is only the second work of this director, it softens the attitude a little, but the fact remains that what I saw on the screen was terrible. And not because it shows the “true side of teenage life”, but simply filmed somehow inept and crumpled. But I looked to the end, because I was just wondering what else I could think of. If you don’t want to spend 48 minutes of your personal time, watch something else. There is really little interesting, little “movie”, only some senseless drive philosophy, mat-perumat and the famous and already recognizable style of “shaking camera”. And there are teenagers whose values seem nightmarish to me (perhaps I would have reacted differently if I were 15, but still I am already 25 - not enough, but something).
But I have a habit of looking for meaning in even the most delusional films, even if sometimes only I can see it. After watching “Girls” it seemed to me that all these stupidities are teenagers and all this “tragedy” only from idleness (the time of the film, by the way, is summer vacation). So one can only hope that the girls will throw their nonsense classes and take the textbook in their hands - although I honestly do not believe in this.
I wanted to put 0 - but it is impossible, and still tried Valeria, so let it be one. But I already have a sports interest in her activities. This movie was boring to me.
After watching Everybody Dies and I Stay, also a Germanic film, I thought it couldn’t be worse. I was wrong. Maybe. This “creativity” is much worse, but the only thing that can justify it is that the film is only the second work of this director, it softens the attitude a little, but the fact remains that what I saw on the screen was terrible. And not because it shows the “true side of teenage life”, but simply filmed somehow inept and crumpled. But I looked to the end, because I was just wondering what else I could think of. If you don’t want to spend 48 minutes of your personal time, watch something else. There is really little interesting, little “movie”, only some senseless drive philosophy, mat-perumat and the famous and already recognizable style of “shaking camera”. And there are teenagers whose values seem nightmarish to me (perhaps I would have reacted differently if I were 15, but still I am already 25 - not enough, but something).
But I have a habit of looking for meaning in even the most delusional films, even if sometimes only I can see it. After watching “Girls” it seemed to me that all these stupidities are teenagers and all this “tragedy” only from idleness (the time of the film, by the way, is summer vacation). So one can only hope that the girls will throw their nonsense classes and take the textbook in their hands - although I honestly do not believe in this.
I wanted to put 0 - but it is impossible, and still tried Valeria, so let it be one. But I already have a sports interest in her activities. This movie was boring to me.
“Do you have a passport, where are 18 years old?” (Attempt No. 2)
Trembling lighters in the hands, experiments with style and hair color, the first “joints”, and with it – obtaining a passport, sympathy for boys and flashes of thoughts about the meaning of life, death and God. All this takes place in the life of three ordinary Moscow schoolgirls, which is invaded with a camera in the hands of Valery Guy Germanik. "Girls" (2005) - a documentary film, which shows a whole drama.
Volumes of psychological literature have been written about transition, hundreds of characteristics have been deduced, but even so much information does not give a complete picture of this interesting, dangerous period. Why interesting? Why is it dangerous? The answer to these contradictory questions was the “surveillance” of the director.
Katya, Sveta and Sasha are almost high school students: they go to the eighth and worry, and whether they will take them to the tenth, talk about two higher “normal” educations. Taking up the camera, Germanika “begged” the girls to live their normal life: to drop off for light cocktails, walk away from their parents’ eyes, smoke in the entrances. Moreover, the film clearly recorded the moment when the girls refused to sell alcohol. The only time the director interfered in the course of the action and presented her passport so that there were no obstacles to “adulthood”.
The question arises, why shoot what everyone who has passed the transition age knows? To shoot children in front of their parents, to open their eyes to the shocking truth? Anyone who has heard at least from the edge of his ear about Valeria Gai Germanique will probably immediately remember the series “School” that thundered throughout the country and nods his head affirmatively. Yes, she is trying to show everyone the truth, some will say. Others will scream that a girl is always trying to smear someone. It all began with the transitional age in general, and ended with the history of a supposedly typical Russian school. But why not look a little further, without dwelling only on the repulsive shell of the transition period. Choosing the anti-aesthetics of home video to reveal the topic, Germanika bet on the shock reaction of the viewer. Words about teenagers smoking, drinking and swearing are boring. The picture certainly has an effect. Besides, how, without documentary evidence, will the viewer believe in what is happening, feel the depth of the problem and start looking for its roots? If Germany simply stated one episode of the habits of girls, it would not be possible to feel the crisis of transitional age, which is reflected in absolutely everything, starting with appearance.
In the film "Girls" growing up occurs in different ways. On the one hand, Kate turns 14 and gets a passport. On the other hand, the heroines surround themselves with “adult” paraphernalia: mat, cigarettes, alcohol, imitation of love intrigues and experiences. And finally, behind all external factors, problems are revealed that schoolgirls are trying to understand and solve.
Banal disputes (about buying cocktails) develop into a humiliating attitude towards each other. For example, in the episode where Sasha is pierced navel, she calls Katya stupid several times. The same way of communication picks up the Light, but already referring to Sasha. But the main bogey in the film was Katya’s brother Andrei, who answered the request to give the keys to the house. A dialogue between brother and sister takes place while playing cards.
In the same episode, Germanica raises the subject of parent-child relationships. In the film, only Sasha's mother and grandmother appear, who approach her and her company on the street. Surprisingly, they did not react to the way their daughter and granddaughter spend their free time: sitting on the pavement with boys of the same age, whose horn and mat can be heard all over the yard. There are cigarette lighters nearby. It looks like the girls don’t have parents. The girls are completely left to themselves, and even real reasons for concern do not cause any reaction, except “Well, at least you would sit on the weed.” Well, right on the pavement. Parents are sure that it is too early to protect from something.
The culmination of the picture is an episode in the entrance, when the girls first yell at Katya in two voices because of her appearance copied from Sasha. Katya begins a tantrum in which her nature is exposed: a lonely, socializing girl. She tells her “friends” who decided to make an adult scandal: “I can’t help being friends with you.” The girls mercilessly insult each other. Sasha and Sveta do not try to calm her friend, on the contrary, provoke her. Sasha, for example, carefully holds out a knife to Katya in response to her desire to commit suicide. In this hysteria everything: and the cry of loneliness, and envy of more stylish friends who “everything is fine with the boys” unlike Katya, and even an attempt to manipulate (cries of suicide) feelings of friends and parents who are not around. There are also peeped or overheard arguments about the meaning of life and God, which, according to Katya, turn hysteria into serious, “adult” suffering. But honestly, where do we go?
In my opinion, the film “Girls” turned out to be a warm-up before the main picture of Guy Germanika to date – “Everyone dies, and I stay.” After all, there, ninth-graders (of course, not girls, but girls), who are no longer so interested in the usual gatherings in the yards, whether it is a disco, and there are high school boys. And even at the end of "Girls" Katya with burning eyes says: “I would rather discotheques began.”
Germanicus managed to create a dilogy. And indeed, in the little-known film “Girls”, shot by the director immediately after graduating from film school, laid a lot of details that migrated into the film “Everyone dies, and I stay”. For example, Katya, Zhanna and Vika also lie on each other’s lap, greeting each other, like their “predecessors” in “Girls”. The girls, who found a bong hidden behind a garbage chute, smoked weed for the first time and tried their best to show what "stuck" them. And in the film “Everybody dies, and I stay” guys with bong lure Vick, the main character. Katya's attempt to drink through a tightening in "Girls" brings Jeanne to fainting. All the problems that Germanika “planted” in “Girls” simply explode in the next film: in this atmosphere of hopelessness and gloom, there is no gap.
The documentary ends with a festive lineup on September 1, with girls invited to school. And how girls behave in school, communicate with teachers and high school students and, of course, parents, Valeria Guy Germanika will show in the film “Everyone dies, and I stay”.
I have been wondering for a long time what is the main problem of the director of this film - Valeria Guy Germanika. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I am sincerely convinced that the aforementioned lady has obvious head problems. Is it a difficult childhood or progressive encephalopathy? Where does she get her inspiration for her films? How do you create such “masterpieces”?
I don’t see Germanic as a director in principle, because everyone can pick up a camera and shoot something like this; moreover, I believe that this madam’s paintings should be strictly banned and ruthlessly censored, because it is after such films that we see in the news reports of schoolchildren beating eleven-year-old girls, forcing them to eat, sorry, dog feces and filming it all.
I watched the film only to once again see the incompetence of the director. This girl almost all the films are saturated with dirt, cruelty and callousness. Personally, at the age of 14, I was studying, reading Dostoevsky and playing Sims, and not wandering around the entrances, drinking jaguars and matting every sentence. What I'm talking about, I'm not doing it now.
Showing all this abomination, Germanika does not bring the problems of teenagers to public view, she creates them, because, as I wrote, it is after such films that children begin to think that fighting is incredibly cool, and jaguar is the best drink in the world. With her immorality and desire to stand out, she exposes young minds, imposing her crazy thoughts and thereby influencing the formation of the child’s psyche, because the age of the youngest viewers of such paintings is 13-14 years.
Instead of banning Soviet cartoons, I would advise the government to pay attention to films of this genre, because in my humble opinion they are the mainstay of teenage cruelty and soullessness.