From the kitchen of an old house rises the sweet sound of laughter of two little girls, attempting to make an omelette and royally messing it up. Elsewhere, half a dozen children huddle secretly behind trees to watch a strange man, who seems magical to them. In another scenario, two boys living on either side of a thatched fence find themselves inseparable. Many such enviable moments of childhood (the scenes above are from Petite Maman, a French movie, restored Malayalam classic Kummatti and Bengali film Dostojee) lie scattered across films chosen for the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) this year.
To enjoy them, one may need to shelve the logic of grownups and embrace the blind faith children have in magic and fantasy and the words spoken by their friends. In Petite Maman, one little girl tells the other: you have to promise that you’ll believe what I say. The other girl agrees. I am your mother, says the first, and without blinking an eye, the second girl says, so you are from the future. In Kummatty, the children turn into animals after the sorcerer casts a spell because they are willing to believe in his magic. In Dostojee, one child steps out into the darkness led by the other in complete faith.
Not all of them are pleasing moments. Stories of difficult childhoods come with disturbing visuals. It need not be tears or pains of abuse, but ways in which children learn to cope without drama. In You Resemble Me, a film from France, the carefree abandon of two little sisters running across the streets in matching pink dresses turns into a sad visual, placed against the abuse at home they are trying to escape.
Watch: Trailer of Petite Maman
In Pebbles, Vinothraj’s Tamil film that was nominated for the Oscars, a young boy’s defence against an abusive father includes keeping a safe distance from him, speaking as little as possible, and running as fast as he could when there is trouble. The film even manages to bring in some lighter moments showcasing the pranks he pulls off to get even with his father.
Lingui / IMDB
Two of the saddest episodes of childhood are seen in the Chad film Lingui and the Indian film The Brittle Thread. In Lingui, a 15-year-old gets pregnant. It is illegal to get an abortion and she is in denial for long – unwilling to speak to her mother or admit to her friends the truth. She still hugs a teddy bear in the night but is unshaken in her demand to the mother that she cannot have the child and end up like the older woman, ripped of childhood and youth. It had been a rape and as a survivor, the young girl clearly states her rights. However, the teenager with a speech disability in The Brittle Thread is not so fortunate. She gets dragged into a messy life from which her mother had kept her safe, not wanting the daughter to have the same fate as her.
It is also nice to watch gender stereotypes broken, as in at least two of the films, girls take on the bullies hurting the boys. In Shoebox, a little girl reacts angrily when a boy is repeatedly bullied by other boys in class. She turns violent, wanting to hurt the bullies at any cost. In Playground, it is the little sister of a bullied boy who asks him to stand up to them.
Children can’t escape the political and social realities that surround them either. Dostojee is set in the period following the Babri Masjid demolition of 1992. The two boys leading the story have Muslim and Hindu names, but they call each other dostojee, an affectionate word that means friend, endearingly. They are unaware of the religious differences that force their families to stay away from each other. Each boy buys or makes for the other what they get for themselves. Even when they get into a fight it doesn't last long. Religion makes its presence felt in their otherwise peaceful world as one boy visits the other’s holy gathering, or shares a festival sweet.
Still from Boomba Ride
In Boomba Ride, another Indian film, the director uses humour to tackle the serious topic of education, telling the story of an Assam school attended by a single student. In 107 Mothers, a Russian language film, children are raised in a women’s prison, knowing only a world with a play area and a room to sleep and eat at. In Yuni, an Indonesian film, a girl has to deal with the superstition of never having a marriage if she rejects two proposals. The opening film Rehana Maryam Noor, which told the story of a woman, who can’t stand injustice, also shows the difficult life of her little girl, unable to understand the strange strictness of her mother.
Most of these festival films, true to their reputation of being close to real life, leaves alone the charms of childhood – their rapt attention of little things that often seem silly to an adult, their spontaneous responses that grownups won’t even think about, their often free display of emotions, and above all, the adventures children create.