Youth culture in global cinema

oys will be men 223
which uses the point of view of a girl (Ana Torrent) fascinated by cinema
to create an allegoric picture of post–Civil War Spain; and the controversial
Cría cuervos (Raise Ravens, 1976), a sharp critique of the Francoist model of
family seen through the eyes of a girl (also played by Torrent). In the early
1990s, two dark dramas by Basque director Juanma Bajo Ulloa are also noteworthy:
Alas de mariposa (Butterfly’s Wings, 1991), in which a girl jealous
of her little baby brother smothers him to death; and La madre muerta (The
Dead Mother, 1993), the story of a little girl traumatized for life after witnessing
the murder of her mother. The rural period dramas Secretos del corazón
(Secrets of the Heart, 1997), in which a child discovers that his father killed
himself probably as a result of the semi-incestuous relationship of the child’s
mother and his uncle, and La lengua de las mariposas (Butterfly’s Tongue,
2000), which illustrates the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War through the
story of a troubled child and his Republican school master, are also classic
examples. Among the most recent examples are Eres mi héroe (You’re My
Hero, 2003)—set in the Spanish transition—and the hospital drama Planta
Cuarta (The Fourth Floor, 2003), which focuses on the lives of young cancer
patients. Although there is no room here for a discussion of the latter film, it
is worth mentioning its interest to this essay, not only because of the familiar
young cast (one of the featured actors, Juan José Ballesta, is also the main
character in El Bola, which I analyze later) but also for its themes of adolescent
male friendship, loyalty, tragedy, and the body, which will be the pillars
of my discussion.
Foreign audiences will be more familiar with the child characters in the
psycho thriller Los otros (The Others, 2001)—where two traumatized children
are victimized by a repressive and psychotic mother (played by Nicole
Kidman); or the various child characters who often appear in flashbacks and
who are a psychoanalyst’s dream in many Almodóvar films, such as Laberinto
de pasiones (Labyrinth of Passions, 1982); Tacones lejanos (High Heels,
1991), and, more recently, Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother, 1999)
and La mala educación (Bad Education, 2004), to mention but a few. Needless
to say, this frequent use of the child’s perspective suggests a national
preoccupation with the Oedipal which lends itself to many sociohistorical
readings, oriented to the past (infantile regression) and to the future (ongoing
process of maturation). These compatible interpretative poles are perhaps
best exemplified by the work of Marsha Kinder, who has argued that this
obsession with children and Oedipal narratives reveals a latent discourse
about unresolved issues of the traumatic Spanish past (197–275), and Marvin
D’Lugo, who sees the use of a child’s viewpoint as suggestive of a muchneeded
process of maturation of older versions of Spanish communities (he