I reckon they should have made the girl murdered more likeable
would have added more impact.
I'm an ABC, ginger, phenomenal, fraud ninja, boat cannibal kid.
I agree.
Yes, I know people who are hurt / murdered are not always wonderful human beings and even if a person is unlikeable that does not mean they deserve to be hurt / murdered.
But come on. This was the one aspect of this film that I felt uncomfortable with. The young girl they kill just happens to be very unlikeable. I don't know what to make of the writer/director's intentions in this regard. Is it realistic? Probably. Is it a ploy to make us feel more sympathetic to 'Boy A' than we otherwise would? I really don't know, but generally speaking it does seem to have that overall effect.
Another thing that seems a little like a cop-out to me was how the camera panned away from the actual violence. Yes, this may have been in the interests of 'good taste' as I'm sure the vast majority of people don't want to see a little girl being attacked. But it could also have been a way of avoiding disclosing to the audience what 'Boy A' actually did. I've already heard someone on this forum say that 'Boy A' was a bystander not a murderer, guilty of not helping the girl but not guilty of taking her life. Personally I assumed he was just as involved in murdering her as 'Boy B'. However, the sad fact is, we don't even know. The writer/director doesn't let us see/hear from him afterwards (if some think seeing might be overly gratuitous) what 'Boy A' is actually guilty of.
And that really makes me uncomfortable. Otherwise, I liked this film. But those minor details always play on my mind when I think of it.
awww, yeah, the fact that they cut off the actual murder annoyed me too. i believe it was probably out of taste, as filming a 10 year old girl being murdered would obviously be quite a controversial scene, but perhaps if they just showed a snippet indicating whether Boy A actually took part in the murder, or merely witnessed it without defending the girl. therefore you could still avoid the controversy of a child murder scene, but still allow the viewer to make more sense of the situation and therefore make a more thorough opinion of Boy A.
I'm an ABC, ginger, phenomenal, fraud ninja, boat cannibal kid.
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So we should all just go around killing everyone who looks at us the wrong way?
Life is hard. It's hard for everyone. And it is also thoroughly 'unfair'. That's just a sad reality that we all have to cope with. Lashing out in anger will never fix that nor will it make us feel better. Murder only degrades the victim, the community and the perpetrator's own innate sense of humanity.
You all took something much different away from this than I did.
To me, nothing turned out to be how I expected it: you hear about a little girl that was murdered by two boys, and in most peoples' minds, the girl is this sweet and innocent little lamb of a thing, and the boys are monsters. The movie reminded me that these are real people, and sometimes things aren't nearly as cut and dry as we imagine them.
Does that excuse what the boys did? Of course not. But it revealed, at least for me, a depth to the events that people on the outside might not have considered, and that maybe we shouldn't be so quick to judge.
A depth? Shouldn't be so quick to judge?
Yes, murderers are people too with complex feelings (this isn't a surprise). Yes, sometimes murder victims can be annoying.
This does not in any way make it okay, nor does it even change things slightly and make them "less cut and dry". Unless we're talking a serious self-defence case or something, where you are protecting your own life, or something similar.
I don't think the girl being annoying and the boys having feelings mean she isn't innocent and they aren't monsters.
I think panning away from the murder was more a cinematic, or plot, device, rather than a direction taken in good taste. It lent to the fact that we really don't know what Eric did or didn't do. He definitely was not an innocent bystander as the movie clearly depicts him walking under the bridge with knife in hand. However, we can't be sure of much more than that. It makes me uncomfortable as well, and that's why I liked the movie. If we knew exactly what he was guilty of, it would make the message a lot less subjective, and a lot less ambiguous. I think that the ambiguity and subjectivity are what makes the movie great. However, I do agree that they should've made the girl more innocent or less unlikeable. It definitely would've added to the impact of the murder.
'Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long.'
Isn't if prohibited to show a child being murdered on screen? Anyway, if they had made the little girl more sympathetic, then the movie would have completely swayed the audience against Boy A. The film's objective was to be thought-provoking and not necessarily take sides. It doesn't matter that she was a little jerk. Actually, so were they. The point is no one has the right to take anyone's life just because they don't happen to be nice. Murder is murder unless it is self-defense. And since they were all kids, you can't even use the 'they were provoked defense.' The point of this movie was to grapple with the question of kids' as murderers and how the society responds to this horrible phenomenon. Boy A and Boy B were both from deeply dysfunctional families. Boy B had been sexually abused by his brother over a period of time. They were both essentially 'thrown away' by their parents and had no up-bringing nor emotional support. Still, as a society, no one wants to accept any justification for murder even if the murderers are children. This was the goal of the movie. It's not about taking sides because there are no winners when a child commits murder. It's really about understanding the complexity surrounding what makes children kill. Certainly, these 2 boys had a lot going on that put them in a violent mindset. And the truth is, most kids who commit such violent acts have serious family issues whether the parents of said children want to admit it or not.
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No. The girl had to be unlikable, or Philip probably wouldn't have killed her. Kind of like he went off on the bullies, yet befriended Eric.
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