This movie displays an adult world caught up in its own silly preoccupations, where children are merely nuisances. All the adults are thinking about romance, dancing, reading, working. The boy's mother goes so far as to leave her son and husband to run off with a boyfriend. This theme resonates through every scene of the movie. The boy is excited to see the horses - turns out it's horse racing. Even the activities ostensibly carried out for children are part of the adult world. In a puppet show, the adults behind the scene angrily demand that a young girl go collect money from viewers. The movie does not only depict the dominance of the adult world over children; it also mocks the adult world. In one particularly powerful scene, the camera focuses on dancing legs - what a silly preoccupation! This is not to say that the world of the child is perfect. Prico, the young boy, is rude to the other children, and is too caught up in his own amusements, such as riding a scooter, to interact with them. And the adult world is not pure silliness. The boy's father makes an earnest effort to make his wife happy, even after she comes back from initially leaving him.
Review of The Children Are Watching Us
