The film “Boy,” directed by Taika Waititi, is a very interesting film made in New Zealand. It follows the story of the main character, Boy, an 11 year old boy who finally gets a chance to know his father, who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years ago. There were several important events in this film, but the main one was when Boy gets high on marijuana, and realizes that Alamein, his father was never there for him or his mother. Through this event, Boy’s view of his father changes in a negative manner, and Boy also begins to respect Rocky, his brother and finds responsibility and maturity within himself.
The director, Waititi, uses several visual and oral techniques, such as dialogue, flashbacks, non-diegetic sound and point of view shots to show Boy’s change in attitude towards his father. When Boy gets high on marijuana and sits on the bridge, he sees flashbacks of when his mother was pregnant, and when she died. From these flashbacks, he realized his father was never there, he wasn’t there when his mother was pregnant or when she died. It was at this point that Boy realized the truth about his father (Alamein) and that he had created false images of Alamein all these years.
This is captured perfectly by the director, Waititi, who uses the point of view shot effectively to capture Boy falling backwards from the bridge through Boy’s eyes, and showed us how he felt at that moment. It showed us that Boy’s world turned upside down, literally, as he found out the truth about Alamein. This realization of his father’s reality leads to an outburst of anger. Waititi’s use of dialogue shows this well as Boy says “I’m nothing like you! ” in rage to Alamein.
This shows he has finally given in to the fact that his father isn’t what he thought, and in reality, Alamein is not someone to look up to. This event had both positive and negative effects on Boy. Positive because Boy’s finally saw the real person his father was, and found out the truth about him. Negative because after all those years of pictures Boy created in his head of his father, to find out they were all false must have been extremely tough to handle for an 11 year old.
Psychological damage would have greatly affected boy, he would’ve probably never been able to trust another man fully again. This event also eventually led to another positive effect on Boy as he took on a role of responsibility and showed maturity beyond his years. After the realization was made about his father, Boy rose to the occasion and looked after his cousins and brother rather than relying on Alamein. This could be seen when Boy woke up the day after his confrontation with Alamein, and Boy started cleaning up the house by himself and making his family food, taking initiative.
This showed how he instantly took on a large role of responsibility, without complaining. This was extremely positive as this is a very important value that he will probably carry on into the future. Waititi use of non-diegetic sounds was very clever in this scene, as it set the tone in a tough situation; where music started in a slow tone and built its way up to a quicker pace as boy began cleaning, which suggests Boy and his family don’t need their careless father in order to live their lives.
Waititi also used this music to show that Boy had matured into and independent person who took responsibility for his family and built a stronger care for them. Boy’s maturity could be seen again when Boy told lies about the whereabouts of Alamein to Rocky when Alamein had disappeared after his confrontation with Boy. Boy also didn’t tell Rocky about the fact that Alamein was never there for both of them, not even when their mother died. This could be seen through Waititi’s use of dialogue, “Where’s dad? ” asked Rocky, “He’s in Japan training to be a samurai” replied Boy.
This showed that the event had a positive effect on Boy, as he wanted to protect Rocky from the person his father really is, which was extremely responsible and mature on his behalf. It also showed that his relationship with Rocky had strengthened, and will continue to strengthen into the future, which can be seen as very positive. Overall, I think that the film ‘Boy’ directed by Taika Waititi was a very enjoyable movie to watch. This film had many important events, but the main event was Boy’s realization of his father, and how he was never there for Boy and Rocky.
This Event led to Boy perceiving his father differently in a negative manner, and it also led to Boy taking more responsibility for his family; therefore it was important in the context of this film. It had both positive and negative effects on Boy. Positive because boy saw his relationship with Alamein was built on lies, and due to Boy’s new found portrayal of maturity and responsibilities beyond his years. However, Boy was also effect negatively because after all the years of admiration towards his father, the reality would have been extremely hard for the 11 year old.
