And It Was All Yellow

Tejaswinee Hazarika

The movie starts with the song, "Yellow" by Cold Play, where Mason Jr is laying on the grass looking into the sky into some lost friction, unsolved, when his mother comes to pick him up from school. The movie starts with Mason's (six) observation where wasp comes from, and later his mother asking about how his teacher explained his wondering habits of looking outside the window all time, and that he sharpened his rocks with his teachers pencil sharpener, to which he replied, he wanted to make arrow heads for his rock collections.

The movie 'Boyhood' was directed by Richard Linklater, who took 12 years to film the movie to reality, as he wanted to show step-by-step events that occurred in the life of an American boy. Linklater has given us one of most unique creation of playing with time, humanistic, real, of love and amongst its most ordinary marriages. The biggest presence is the absence of a driving force, quite like in real life. It's because life happens when we are busy doing other things.

The movie portrayed what it's to be a MOM and DAD having their unplanned kids, leading to a divorce. Being a mom, calls for no time for leisure, while dad is free from all the chores and only for weekend visit. The mother feels the gap every time, that she makes her own hasty choices in men that follows, one wrong husband to an abusive boyfriend, to landing for the second time as a wife of an alcoholic abuser, and being a victim of violence, she was never free from being a mother or not choosing motherhood over any failed marriage. She argues with her boyfriend about how she from being somebody's daughter to being a mother was so fast, and shuts him up when he calls them as her mistakes, and her efforts to keep things at place with less income. While on the other hand, the dad stays away in Alaska, comes to visit them after one and a half year, to which she was furious and was arguing over his and her priority in a row, and not letting him forget that, even if it is with just a few casual questions underling that the children haven't had anything to eat but french-fries and everything to do but homework. To keep the family together the mother chose to go back to school, so that she can fulfil her dream of becoming a Professor.

Mason's elder Sister Samantha, who is getting A's in her history assignment, and scoring dozen or more basket in matches, and keeping her brother awake at night by her crazy dance moves, and faking of him hitting her, while Masson who doesn't like soccer too much, collects snake vertebrae and can't fight his sister at as simple a pillow fight. Dad telling his kids "never voting Bush" while forgetting not to curse and smoking openly near them. When Samantha, asked for pennies ever time her dad cursed. Mason asking him if he would get back with their mother, where Samantha reminded him of what she remembered as a kid, when he used to yell at his mother, to which their dad replied asking, don't she get mad at her brother or mother, and does that mean that they don't love each other, and concluded that the case is the same with grownups, and that's not a big deal. Mason keeps asking his mother about, if she loved his dad, and to which her reply was, "…just as we love someone, doesn't mean it's healthy to live with them."

At the same time the mother falls in love with her Professor, and marries him. After some weeks into the new life with a stepdad, Mason was exposed to another male figure who took pleasure in torturing him, shaving off his beautiful neck long hair, calling Mason a girl. After their mother became a professor and Mason and Samantha were teenagers, and had their own complex problems, they were again, open to their mom's new boyfriend, who tried to remind Masson of his position in the house, "there can only be one man in the house." On the other hand, their dads periodic visits, where once he was seen giving sex education which was in a very supporting nature, and cited examples of what happens when there is an early pregnancy. And what an early pregnancy has done to him and their mother. Mason's discussions about his crush with his dad, about him going through confused stages, where he was not able to understand girls. While his dad suggested to ask her a lot of questions, and to listen to her. Masson was seen going through the earring and the black cloth period where, he was into smoking and drinking, but would confess his offences to his mother. And that his mother would understand saying, a little is fine.

Mason fought with his dad for selling the cool black car, for his new wife and baby, which he was expecting to receive on his 18th birthday, but ending with "The Beatles" after breakup songs compiled on a row of emotions, to learning to shoot with his grandfather, Mason was asked to not worry and to wear the blue suit he received from his grandparents and walk to the period of adulthood passionately, "being a man". Mason was also seen going through heartbreaks and is not excited about the "prom culture" of America. His passion for photography lending him a silver medal at college level competition, to getting scholarship to continue his further studies, Mason has observed different men advising him, may be related or not, from time to time, but he continued to listening to his heart and ended at a place where he wanted, and was happy to leave home.

Through my lenses, I can relate "boyhood" as not just period from 6-18, stages of life. History has definitely observed what it has been defined to be a girl and boy, and how from time to time a boy and a girl is reminded of their identity and ways to behave or wear. While, the movie has shown, what the new generation has come to, and that the idea of men necessarily be masculine, strong and aggressive, has failed to define in this movie. The movie was a very simple portrait of an American life, filled with separation and sadness, and yet found love and happiness in the same garden. The idea of living the "American Dream," away from family after the age of 18, independent and free to take their own decisions, to live life to the fullest and that the days to live in the comfort of the mother's arms have already passed away.

The movie ends with a very different breakdown of the social structure yet a touch of tradition, when the mother was sitting with all the bills and a pen, was sobbing for the fact that her kids were so happy to leave to live their dream, and how much she has worked to make them land there, not realising, most of her milestones were concurred and that all she is left to now wait for her funeral, and sobbed by saying, "My life has been all about milestones, I thought there would be "more" and to Mason's notice, motherhood never has a funeral.