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kkmiller-10351
Reviews
Rites of Passage (2013)
Brings gold from unexpected places - pure alchemy
This is a movie of extraordinary humanity. It reached into parts of my being that few other movies have which is one reason I'm giving it ten out of ten. It opens as if it's a contemporary documentary and the characters are so true to themselves that it was not long before I was seeing it as the real life of these kids. I kept telling myself that I know it's scripted fiction but a part refused to believe it and I was drawn into their intertwining stories.
At the heart of the movie are moments of discovery. The kids hear their teacher speak of her father and they suddenly discover her. They listen to a class clown read his poetry and they suddenly discover the real him. Another speaks of his grandma and they discover an eloquence that he's safely hidden from them - until now. Other characters discover themselves and find lodes of justice and honesty and vulnerability that take them by surprise. It is these times of discovery that form the liminal moments that give rise to the title of the movie.
I am amazed that such a profound result could come from a filming process that refuses to either start or finish with the professional gloss of modern movie-making. Any kid who wanted a part got worked into the production – that's probably not a casting method likely to produce the best results. It's especially the case when we consider that the kids themselves have the chaotic lives that we see in their on-screen characters. It was these kids who wrote the script as they went along. The team putting this whole thing together have managed to hold a bunch of teenagers sufficiently focused to bring gold out of dark places.
Let's recap – you start with a set of ten production rules that themselves make the project rather wobbly, then you add in anybody who wants to take part, remembering that members of the cast are themselves chaotic and wounded by life already, you get them to write the script, and you produce gold. This is ten out of ten alchemy.