Saturday, July 13, 2013

Sixteen - a peek into an urban teen's life

Sixteen is the latest flick at the box office, all about teens and their socio-emotional life.

One thing was clear for me while watching this film...that I need to spend some time with the teenager students in a school and understand their lives before writing articles as an educationist and pedagogue.

This is a film about four friends from middle and upper middle class studying in a upmarket school in Delhi. After a long time I have seen a film about schools where adults dont rule the movie. The four teens rule this film.

The film does not sermonise on how life should be but just presents it to the audience. Yes...the director has picked up some exclusive cases...perhaps not all teens go through the events shared in the film. But for sure...all teens would relate to the film in having portrayed their lives vividly.

The film shows the parent child relationship very beautifully and has a variety of parent characters starting from overtly strict/abusive parents to parents, who give a lot of freedom their kids.

As the posters tell you...this film is also about sex and how teenagers take to it. It somehow takes away all the significance that the society attaches to sex. The film has been given an A certificate, which means the average school going student cannot watch this film. Thats the irony as I would certainly want to screen this film in a school.

For all the adults who talk about how teenagers should be and those dealing with their lives...its a must watch. Perhaps you could take a lesson in parenting through the film.

Touching a variety of issues like peer pressure, teenage pregnancy, teenage delinquency and alcohol...its a delight to be in a teen's world for the duration of the film.

Watch it just to be in the world of an average urban middle class teen.

P.S - I would love to break the rule...screen this film for a group of teens and have a group discussion around it. Any takers.

As a pedagogue, the only thing I want to do is to go and have discussions with teenagers on issues raised in the film

Some of the scenes I enjoyed were:

1. Conversation between two teens as they are bunking the morning assembly...and the morning assembly goes on.
2. Conversations between the son and the father, who wants his son to be an IAS
3. Conversation between the daughter and father, who trusts her daughter not to let him down
4. Conversation between the drunk teenaged girl(Tanisha) and a young lad in the lawn of the house.

Tanisha is a star...I loved her.


2 comments:

Amita Sathe Bambawale said...

Loved your critique/commentary/review....I think I will definitely go and watch the film!

Education and Environment said...

Thanks Amita...you will find a lot of chattering youngsters in the hall