I don't know whether it was a lucky break or contrivance that the boys in Sarah Goodman's documentary When We Were Boys were called upon to study Lord of the Flies during her fly-on-the-wall filming at Royal St. George's College.
It's certainly a handy metaphor for the hierarchical behaviour of pubescent boys.
There are no skulls crushed in this impressively long-term verite doc about life among the young, privileged, white and male. But there's plenty of ego crushing, some "bitch-slapping," and an almost indecipherable ebb and flow of male tween politics.
These do not start out as the easiest boys to like. It's not so unusual for a group of 12 and 13-year-olds to indulge in insult-filled debate (with de rigueur homophobic slurs).
But when the subject is which airline is best, some may want to see them get their rich butts kicked.
However, what's fascinating about When We Were Boys -- apart from the recognizability of its turmoil-filled-yet-emotionally-repressed male adolescent experience -- is how much these elites-in-training behave like boys of any social class. If you have boys, you'll recognize the current insult dialect ("noob" is big, as is "pwnage," pronounced "ownage" but with an inexplicable silent P. And of course, "You're so gay!" never goes out of style).
They play Guitar Hero just like my public-schooled boys. There's the usual yawning and dramatized disinterest in class, the troublemakers who specialize in pushing teachers' buttons, the random property destruction born of boredom or some more inchoate bloody-mindedness.
But there are also principled expressions of friendship, and even one of taking blame to protect a friend.
There's a lot of loose talk these days about the "problems" boys face in school, and how it may have to do with the lack of male teachers. I'm undecided, but it's interesting to see that the teachers who get most exasperated with typical boy behaviour are women.
And then there's stuff that's not so easy to categorize.
When We Were Boys is all over the place much of the time, but when it focuses, it tells an interesting story of two best friends -- Noah and Colin -- who drift apart after Grade 8 for mysterious reasons.
The least mysterious part of it is that Noah becomes unpopular, and "bad-boy" Colin tows the line. It's a strange turn, since Noah is unusually bright, handsome, athletic and a school choir star (we see him go from featured soprano to baritone in the course of the film). Somewhere along the way, however, he acquires a reputation for being the richest among the rich, creating ironic resentment.
What starts out as an endless stream of jibes ("Noah, can you give me a MasterCard for my birthday?") turns into tangible shunning.
Perhaps the most poignant scene in the film is a time-lapse shot of Noah sitting down at a full cafeteria table, where his sullen tablemates get up and leave one by one.
When We Were Boys is a far more ambitious project than Goodman's previous calling-card Army Of One (about U.S. Army recruits), and her choice of verite is probably correct, since value judgments of young teens may be a little unfair.
Still, it's such a rich and complex environment, I found myself aching at times for a Jane Goodall to explain the behaviour the way she did the chimps at Gombe.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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