{"id":8287,"date":"2010-02-22T20:18:48","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T04:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=8287"},"modified":"2010-02-22T22:15:27","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T06:15:27","slug":"1981-ricardo-trogi-2009-canada-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=8287","title":{"rendered":"1981 (Ricardo Trogi, 2009): Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Nicholas Berquist<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Many of us would not like to revisit the times we had growing up.\u00a0 For the most part they\u2019re filled with embarrassment, failure, and more embarrassment.\u00a0 Ricardo Trogi is of a different mold and his film 1981<\/a><\/em> is a retelling of what life was like for him as an eleven-year-old.\u00a0 Trogi doesn\u2019t pull any punches and really encapsulates what life is really all about for a middle schooler.<\/p>\n

Trogi\u2019s tone for the film is noticeable right off the bat.\u00a0 The narrator, Trogi, begins by taking us through a flashback of WWII.\u00a0 His father, Benito, was a child during the war and his family couldn\u2019t afford to buy \u201cstuff.\u201d\u00a0 His sense of humor fits because it is that of a child.\u00a0 The flashback scene is in black and white and Ricardo says that\u2019s because everything was black and white, even people.\u00a0 Once the flashback ends we understand that Ricardo is trying to swindle his Dad into buying him a calculator watch.\u00a0 This is a theme throughout the film.\u00a0 Ricardo begs for things and his parents refuse him.\u00a0 This is pretty much the same deal we all had to put up with in middle school.<\/p>\n

The Trogi\u2019s are forced to move placing Ricardo and his younger sister in a new school.\u00a0 This is as epic as life can get when you\u2019re growing up.\u00a0 There is nothing more intimidating than a new school.\u00a0 What makes things worse is all the kids have the things that Ricardo has been craving.\u00a0 These kids \u201chave dough\u201d as Ricardo puts it.\u00a0 When things couldn\u2019t possibly be any worse, Ricardo is assigned to learn longhand from Anne Tremblay.\u00a0 During their session she brushes against Ricardo\u2019s arm, an action he sees as a deliberate attempt to be close to him.\u00a0 Ricardo develops a huge crush on her and soon has to juggle his family life, his friends, and Anne Tremblay.\u00a0 Who says life for an eleven-year-old is easy?<\/p>\n

Like most of us, Ricardo discovers lying can help him get out of tricky situations.\u00a0 Also like most of us, he is too young to understand the repercussions of his actions.\u00a0 Truth and lying is also a prevalent theme of this film.\u00a0 Do we lie to protect ourselves or does the truth really set us free?\u00a0 This is a question that we have trouble understanding late in our lives, let alone when they\u2019re just beginning.<\/p>\n

No matter how old we are and no matter what happens in our lives we will always remember the cliques that formed in school.\u00a0 Maybe the names fade and the faces become less clear, but whether or not we were a part of the cool clique resonates forever.\u00a0 Ricardo knows who the cool gang is and will do anything to be included.\u00a0 Thanks to Ricardo\u2019s cousin he knows a pretty sly way to make friends quickly.\u00a0 This scene alone is reason enough for any male to see this film, it\u2019s true, it\u2019s pathetic, and mostly it\u2019s hilarious.<\/p>\n

Because this film is so realistic it\u2019s hard to remember we are viewing cinema.\u00a0 The voice over of Trogi helps to remind us we are witnessing a story, not peoples\u2019 lives.\u00a0 The feeling of realism is reinforced by the cinematography and editing.\u00a0 The camera is stationary for most of the film, creating a window into these peoples\u2019 lives.\u00a0 It\u2019s so real we feel like we\u2019re there.\u00a0 The rhythm of the film through editing is also slower than most films; reinforcing this belief that what is going on could very well be reality.\u00a0 Trogi did a fantastic job of capturing the realism and contrasting his style to Hollywood, creating this very different type of film.<\/p>\n

For anyone who enjoys a good comedy with just the right amount of drama, this film is certain to satisfy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Nicholas Berquist. \u00a0Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Many of us would not like to revisit the times we had growing up.\u00a0 For the most part they\u2019re filled with embarrassment, failure, and more embarrassment.\u00a0 Ricardo Trogi is of a different mold and his film 1981 is a retelling of what life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}