“Brothers:” With camera heels – Osloby

Unger born in the 2000s must be the best-documented generation. But unlike most other parents, make filmmaker Aslaug Holm also an art project out of it. She has followed her two sons Luke and Mark from childhood to adolescence.

Read also: This film is called “the Norwegian Boyhood”

The result is the already much discussed documentary Brothers . It has many strong qualities, but also calls for a discussion on parents documenting and publishing children’s upbringing.

Natural presence

As long as the boys are small works Brothers as intended. When expressing kids small extent some resistance to being harassed by camera. They accept that the mother films them in virtually any situation, they behave quite naturally and plays a wide range of emotions.

In these scenes can undisturbed enjoy the cinematic qualities. Holm leads a distinctly poetic camera as well in city streets and on soccer as in scenic surroundings at Smøla, her own childhood place.

The scenes there resembles a classic summer idyll. The boys jump into the sea from boathouse, lying stretched on the grass, rudder and eat rhubarb with sugar on. The loving gaze camera lingers on soft necks, Sun-Kissed hair and laundry waving in the wind.

Lifecycle

Aslaug Holm has previously made documentaries about foreign policy and Jens Stoltenberg. She was also photographed on Cool and Crazy . The experienced filmmaker even narrator Brothers , and she describes the project as a study in the small but important things in life. The film has old clips and stills from her own childhood, including a striking admission of his grandfather on whaling.

To search Holm to awaken life in your own childhood memories and draw sons into a larger lifecycle. This ambition is also expressed in existential questions she poses boys. Often she gets full credit in the form of such imaginative and precocious lines that children are masters in.

Naive framework

Family Life reflects the world, cinematographer creates context. It is a beautiful idea, but as the boys get bigger, it seems the increasingly naive. For it is so obvious that they set up to be decent against her mother, help her with the project.

In several scenes exudes teenage boys a genuine desinteresse for photographer in tow, be it in school or in bands exercises. Indeed they protest also in unambiguous terms on camera: Stop being finished.

On ambiguously get the film a special excitement in these scenes. Protest and resistance are notoriously grateful material. Had this been fiction, it would certainly functioned. In the related, American feature film Boyhood Richard Linklater filmed the same boy over a period of 12 years. There are just teen’s defiance and distance an important part of the portrait. As an audience, we can enjoy it, because the movie is fiction.

Artificial harmony

In Brothers infects boys reluctance of the spectator. Spell is broken, the authentic everyday life seems strained and staged. It is brave of the filmmaker to expose this conflict, not least because it undermines her own romantic frame story. Aslaug Holm makes a fumbling attempt to restore harmony, but then it is obviously the film project to be saved in the country, the brothers are already somewhere else.