pushing limits

I didn't think the limits were pushed, I've seen much weirder movies than this, the masturbation thing going on with the young boy was fine, the movie would probably have been not as good had it not been included because it shows the mental state of mind the child was in.

I thought that risk was one of the better parts of the screenplay, and the kid did a great job with it. This thread makes me remember there was a very controversial scene in Kite Runner where a young boy is raped by a group of boys his age. The kid that played the rape victim was afghani and his family actually had to leave the country because of that scene. But what a searing unforgettable scene it was. And not gratuitous. These things do indeed happen.

I don't know if this will make you feel any better, but the actor was 14/15 at the time of shooting (according to his IMDB he was born in 91, the film was released in 2005 to film festivals before general release) The youngest he couldh ave been was probably 13.

His character looks 10 11 and if the actor was 10 or 11 I would have had some ethical issues with it as well, but because the actor was older I have much less of a problem with it.

Whatever his age, just going by his acting ability, he is very mature for whatever age he was during the time of shooting. He obviously also really understood the material and played it well.

Even a sheltered 14 15 year old has heard really bad language, has heard really frank and graphic depictions of sex and knows what masturbation is. But funny thing is, I came to IMDB in hopes that the actor was older tahn he portrayed because I enjoyed the movie, but I don't feel it's right to push a child actor to do things he can't yet comprehend. And on that issue alone I had reservations about the film.

But yeah, the kid wasn't 10 or 11, so while the scenes are still disturbing and bizarre, I have no ethical or moral reservations about them anymore.

Ok wow my math is bad. 13 14 at the time of shooting. 12 at the youngest. One year makes a big difference in maturity at that age. Ok so not as comfortable as I was before when I was going off my bad Math, but still, better than 10 or 11.

I think downthread one response makes a good point that this would be perfectly legitimate in a novel or short story (or even something animated!); but when you are having a young actor (who was described as being 12 in the DVD extras) do it, it's questionable.

Baumbach describes in the audio extra that when he filmed the library scene, he went over to the shelves to show the boy how he wanted him to do it...with the boy's mother standing right there as well. He said he hopes he never has to do anything that uncomfortable again, which might have been a hint that it was over the line.

Still a 9/10 film for me, but definitely a questionable move.

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It's bizarre that people have such tremendous difficulty dealing with the sexuality of adolescents. I thought this movie was good at showing the exact consequences of our societies decision to force adolescents into ignorance about their own bodies and sexuality. The natural urges of puberty are the strongest urges anyone ever feels. Sex hormone levels reach their lifetime peak at the very beginning of puberty - it's what kicks everything off. Levels fall off for the rest of our lives.

And everyone went through this. It is stunning that the experience of being made to think that your own natural development is unusual is so universal. But that is what fuels people being so profoundly uncomfortable with the most basic aspects of human biology. We're all human beings. These things should not be capable of surprising us, disgusting us, or even make us uncomfortable. This film should, certainly, cause people to wonder why an adolescent would do something like masturbate in a library and wipe his ejaculate on books. I don't imagine that had much of anything to do with the other anxieties in his life. If his parents weren't getting divorced, the same thing would have probably happened. Why? Because he has been kept ignorant. He simply is not aware of an alternative.

'Gross' things like this are extremely, extremely common in young adolescents. How are they supposed to learn to integrate masturbation into their life in a convenient way? Who is going to teach them when most adults are so neurotic about sexuality that they won't even acknowledge that it's healthy and normal for adolescents to masturbate or are too uncomfortable with the idea that they won't talk about it, leaving their own offspring to suffer and worry that their development is screwed up. Then they grow up to keep the cycle going.

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