Boy

A sympathetic film about a boy who grows up without parents and replaces their absence and overall mediocre prospects with an overblown fantasy. His mother died, his father is a criminal, and he hardly finds any work in the local village, so he achieves values that we only know from the portrayal of the Roma minority, along with traditional boys' rivalry, where the one without a family background is simply more unlucky. But one day, a car with several arrogant gentlemen appears, who obviously did not come to listen to serious music or admire the beauties of the local countryside. One of them is the father of the main protagonist. However, what follows does not correspond to what our boy dreamed of. Whether it is a sad comedy or a cheerful drama, the director manages to view the struggles of his little protagonist with detachment. A pleasant film, but with the drawback that it lacks the power to stay permanently in one's memory. It is simply one of those films that you are likely to forget in a year or two. Overall impression: 70%. (17.08.2013)

I really like Waititi a lot and I certainly can't say Boy disappointed me significantly. The opening sequence is a wonderful testament to Taika's ability to playfully transport the viewer into the heart of a child's imagination like few others, and the entire story is an important expression of the filmmaker's distinctive take on the environment he was forced to grow up in – away from Michael Jackson and the Hulk, only in the company of poverty, his own friends and his own enormous imagination. But as well as the script ticks off and develops all the major motifs, it fails to produce believable characters with whom one can identify, nor does it convincingly merge childlike naivety and humour with a bitter social statement. All in all, a very interesting and original movie that I will always look back on with respect, but again I prefer to reach for the more cheerful and balanced pieces of Waititi's work. 70% (05.12.2017)