Northwest Film Forum

Aslaug Holm is a Norwegian filmmaker and mother of two sons, and both roles become inextricably intertwined as Holm trains her camera on sons Lukas and Markus (aged five and eight respectively when she began shooting) over the course of a decade, and the result is an astonishingly candid portrait of childhood that is faithful to the flux of coming-of-age. The film is a distinctly poetic home movie that shares in an inevitable lyricism but is fraught with the tension of camera-wielding parenting; the line between nurture and intervention is blurred as we become unwittingly participant to the kids’ development. Holm’s risk is ultimately our gain, affording us the opportunity to re-live the anxiety and hope of surviving that seemingly interminable threshold of childhood. This judicious family album charts the nuances of the boys’ lives - from the disturbing birth of discontent to a first punk haircut - with fastidious attention, letting the consequences of both manifest without the anticipated burden of parental judgement.