Kidulthood, A Docu-drama by film maker Menhaj Huda
Activity 1
Introduction scene
Q1: Look at the poster image, how does this confirm your expectations of Kidulthood?
A: It confirms to me what I thought which is that the film is about a group of troubled kids (15 year olds) living in London showing how hard it is for them when they are growing up and the issues they face in life.
Q2: Why do you think the title “Kidulthood” was chosen?
A: child hood is about how children get on with life at that age. Adult hood is about how adults get on with life when older than 18. I think that kidulthood is a mixture between kids (aged 15) getting on with their life’s at that age but also acting like adults in ways such as fighting, smoking, drugs sex and much more. Kid is the bit that stands for their childhood and ult from adult is the second part of their lives which is more to do with acting like grownups. Kid-ult-hood.
Q3: the opening scene is set in a school playground, how does this work well for the film?
A: The school playground setting is very good. It gives the feeling to the audience that’s it’s a standard morning school day and everyone in the playground is hanging out with their mates in their separate groups. This gives an ordinary day at school impression to the audience.
Q4: how are the tension and/ or aggression conveyed through body language or facial expressions of each group of characters?
A: There is a lot of tension and aggression shown throughout the playground. Firstly is the thin girl (who hangs herself later o) and the fat girl who are making quiet conversation to each other and are constantly looking over at Sam and his gang (bully’s) nervously. Sam and his gang are leaning against the school fence/wall giving me the feeling that they are the bosses of this school; they are laughing, frowning and pointing at the thin and fat girl. Next is the main characters, their group consists of Trevor, jay and Moony. Moony is standing in front of a tree nervously keeping an eye on Sam the reason for this is because behind the tree Jay is snogging Claire who is Sam’s girlfriend.
Q5: is it easy to identify the outsiders, if so how?
A: I easily spot the outsiders who are the thin girl and fat girl. The reason I could tell was because of their facial and body expressions. As well as them talking quietly they both looked very depressed and kept nervously looking towards Sam and his gang making it obvious to the audience that she was an outsider.
Q6: how does the film build tension between Claire and Sam at this point?
A: He builds tension by letting the audience know that Claire is Sam’s boyfriend when She says to jay that she’s not sure that this a good idea, jay says he would protect her if anything happened but Claire seems sure that Sam would beat the crap out of them all if he caught them.
Q7: What words would you use to describe the images of Trife (Trevor) we see in the opening sequence of the film? How do they support what is going on around him. How do they contrast with him? What do you suppose he is doing?
A: My words to describe Trevor when I see him in the opening scene would be dodgy, suspicious and up to no good. He contrasts well with what is going on around him, because everyone is doing something sneaky in the playground for example some people are smoking, some doing drugs and others are making out behind a tree while Trevor is sneakily making something in a Tec block. I think that Trevor is making something that may cause harm in some way later on, I get this impression because firstly of the suspicious music track and secondly because he keeps looking around him like he’s up to no good.
Q8: How does the soundtrack add to the feeling of tension?
A: the music soundtrack has a vibe about it that makes it feel like it building up tension for something to happen.
Representation of young people
Q1: What are the main stories in the film? Are these representatives of the majority of young people?
A: The main stories are firstly following the life a girl that is bullied so badly she hangs herself, that is the shortest story. The second story is based on the gang consisting of Trevor, Moody and jay and how they are treated in public for example not being picked up by any taxi’s and being accused of stealing a cap which he didn’t steal. The next story is about Trevor is having to do errands for his uncle (gangster) which he doesn’t like at all and is also trying to come to terms with being a father of a child. Another is about Alisa who has to deal with drug related issues and depression main because she is drunk.
I don’t think that these stories represent too many people, my reasons being that this film was made in London and the actors played the characters of low class families.
Q2: What kind of activities do we see the kids doing throughout the day?
A: the words they used were “jamming” which means they were just messing around town doing stuff such as stealing from shops, smoking weed, drinking and getting into verbal or physical fights.
Q3: How do we feel about the language used in the film? Is it an accurate representation of how young people talk?
A: I find the language in the film very hard to understand, The slang is used very often but I think it is very genuine for chavs and gangs to use slang such as safe, you get me and blood for example. It is an accurate representation of how young people in gangs or chavs or black/brown (not all just some) people talk. Generally though the majority of kids talk normally using very little slang.
Q4: How do we feel about the incident where trife is accused of stealing the baseball cap?
A: I feel that this very well done, as it shows the audience how harsh and unfair some people can be in this case the manager and security guard accused Trife of stealing the baseball cap when he hadn’t. I reckon that they only accused him because of the way he dressed (tracksuit bottoms and jacket, chav/ gang look) and possibly because of his race, I could relate this scene to when the taxis wouldn’t pick up Moony.
Q5: How are the adults in the film represented? Who is seen in a?
A1: positive light? None as far as I could see.
A2: negative light? The parents of the girl who hung herself because they didn’t pay enough attention to their daughter’s wellbeing. Also in a negative light is uncle Curtis who influences Trife in a bad way and gives out a bad example to youths.
Q6: How do you feel the way in which young people “15-18” are represented?
A1: in films? In the films I see with youths at that age in they are usually part of a gang or they are doing drugs, drinking, fighting, causing trouble in some way, the main reason most films include this kind of stuff is too keep the audience entertained and I feel that most of it is over exaggerated to give the film a higher rating.
A2: in print media? In newspapers and news channel young adults are given a bad name for example the England riots a ’few months ago, the media said that all youths were slacking in behaviour; the large majority of us didn’t take part in the riots in any way at all! I think that some news sources are biased for example the phone hacking with news of the world.
Q7: What do you think the reaction of someone aged 50+ might be to the film? What would you say to them?
A: the reaction would most likely be shock and disappointment, street culture has changed a lot in last 50 years, I would say to these people that life has changed and there’s nothing that can be done, get on with life!
Q8: Do you think the film raises issues of race or gender?
A: yes to both. Gender because if a girl doesn’t have sex she would be laughed at for being a virgin and if she has sex with too many boys in certain amount of time then she’d be called a “slut”. With boys life is like a competition, boys will compete with each other on things such as who can have sex with the most girls or who has won the most fights or who has ever killed someone.
Activity 2
Q1: What is meant by the term docu-drama?
A: Contrary to docu-drama, which basically is documentary, filmed in real time, “reality” in docudrama is filmed at a time ulterior to the events it portrays.
Q2: Research gang culture and crime in West London area. Here are two articles for the research..
A1: Do you think Menahaj Huda has portrayed the real "West London" or a small section of West London? I think that Menahaj has portrayed a small section of West London. I have been looking at articles on the internet and in papers and although there is some gang culture in West London it is nothing compared to other places in London/England. However, Kidulthood is very differnt compared to the real West London. There is much more drama going on in the film than in the real West London.
A2: Has the producer steriotyped his characters? The producer has defiantly steriotyped his charcters. Sam is steriotyped has the typical gang leader (bad man in slang). Trevor, Jay and Moony are steriotyped as a gang who are dressed as chavs but they arent as harsh as Sam. Becky is steriotyped has a "slut" she uses her body to get what she wants for example to get hold of drugs and cash she has sex with a 30 year old she doesnt even know.
Q3: Kidulthood has been classified as a "docu-drama". If you had to choose between documentary or drama which would you choose to categorise this film in and why?
A: I would choose drama because I feel that Kidulthood is a very over exaggerated film. I cant say its a documentary because not everyone in West London bullies people so badly they end up hanging themselves, neither does every girl (slag possibly) have sex with dealers to get money. And lastly not every person in West London uses a baseball bat to sort out issues with people they dont like.
Q4: If you were asked to produce a "docu-soap"(documentary/soap) what would it be based on?
A: would choose to do my docu-soap based on group of average people (16- 20) who are at College or Secondary school. My film would cover everyday problems for different kinds of people such as drug addictions (can include smoking addictions), confidence problems for people who find it hard making friends or getting along with people in places such as house partys, clubs town college ect. realtionship issues, facebook the good and bad things that it can do to people. There are many more things I could include too, those were just afew examples. This kind of topic makes it very easy add humour to it (soap).
Q5: How would you deal with the problem if you found a gang having a fight outside?
A: I would try to break up the fight by talking them out of it or threatening to call the police. However i would not ressolve the issues by physically calling the police, because if I did that I would get in alot of trouble with the police for getting involved with the fight, I may also have gotten seriously hurt or possibly killed if I tried to intervene. The best thing you can do is let the police deal with the problem to avoid being in trouble with the police or gang.
Q6: What is your favourite street culture film and why?
A: My favourite street culture film would be Attack the bloc which is about a small Gang in London consisting of 15 year olds who all live in the same block as eachother, They think they are badmen but eventually meet their match when aliens start attacking the bloc. I like this film mainly because it contains allot of comedy which is my most favourite genre of film. It is also full of action which is another one of my most favourite ganres of films.
No comments:
Post a Comment