While last Tuesday the judge pronounced the sentence, Nicholas Prosper, 19, remained with her head in her hands. The dense silence of the room was not enough to contain the magnitude of what happened: the young man had killed his mother, … His brother and sister, and planned an even greater massacre in a primary school. The brutality of the crime and the profile of the murderer shook a British society that sees how these types of crimes are increasing, and that at the same times when the 49 -year prison sentence was issued, he attended the success of ‘adolescence’, the new Netflix series that has caused an intense debate inside and outside the British borders for its Portrait of a adolescence affected by loneliness, influencers and digital violence.
‘Adolescence’ begins with a crime, and we are not doing spoiler, since this is known from the first moment. Jamie, a 13 -year -old boyhe is arrested in relation to the murder of a classmate. From there, the series, in four episodes each shot in a single sequence plane, unfolds as an exploration of the family, educational and social environment that surrounds the protagonist, and a deep inquiry takes place on the invisible pressures surrounding today’s adolescents. Its creators, Jack Thorne and Stephen GrahamThey have declared that their intention was to understand what leads a teenager to commit such a violent act. «I want it to be shown in schools, I want it to be shown in Parliament. It is crucial because this will only get worse»Thorne said. “Is something that people need to talk about; I wish that is what fiction can do, “and that is that” to understand Jamie, we have to understand the pressures to which he is subjected. “
The series has not only generated a strong social discussion, but it has also been acclaimed by critics. At this time, it is the most seen in Netflix worldwide. The critic Tom Peck, of ‘The Times’, described her as “complete perfection”, while Lucy Mangan, of ‘The Guardian’, said it is “the closest to television perfection in decades.” The American director Paul Feig described the first episode as “one of the best television hours I have ever seen”, while the critic of ‘The Telegraph’ Anita Singh said that it is “a devastating series” and that “the performance is phenomenal”, including that of the creator Stephen Graham, whom he described as “the best actor in active actor.”
In addition to the background, the form has also been a reason for praise. Each episode has been filmed in a single continuous shotwhat has been described by criticism as a technical and artistic feat. According to Mangan, “his technical achievements are at the height of interpretations worthy of awards and a script that manages to be intensely natural and evocative at the same time.” For Jake Kanter, from ‘Deadline’, “she stays in mind long after the credits end”, and in that he is right, judging by the presence he occupies in the media since its premiere.
In front of the screen
The protagonist and his best friends live in appearance a quiet life. They leave little home, do not get into trouble. However, it is in front of a screen where the tragedy is created. The series focuses on the digital content consumed by adolescents and their exposure to misogynistic speeches such as those of the ‘a set of online communities that share ideas about gender, masculinity and relationships between men and women. Although there is some diversity within the term, many promote ideologies that feed resentment towards women or to men who do not conform to certain traditional ideals. In fact, the series mentions the influence of the speeches of Andrew Tate, a misogynist ‘influencer’. The objective of the creators, according to Thorne, is to show how “Jamie has been contaminated by ideas that he has heard ‘online’, which offers him a logic that makes sense to him and respond to his loneliness and incomprehension.”
The political reactions soon arrived. Deputy Anneliese Midgley took the issue to Parliament And he requested government support to project the series in educational centers, and even the prime minister, Keir Starmer, supported the initiative and acknowledged that in his home, with a 16 -year -old son and one of 14, they are also seeing ‘adolescence’, which “shows an emerging and growing problem that we must address»He warned.
This context has fueled the claims of platforms such as Smartphone Free Childhoodthat demand the prohibition of the use of ‘smartphones’ in schools, and the municipality of Barnet, in London, will become a pioneer in this matter from the next year, when they prohibit them in all their centers. Graham has publicly expressed his support for these measures.
The series has also been compared to other British fictions that have addressed youth from different prisms in other times, each with its singularities. And it is that during the last two decades the television of the United Kingdom has offered diverse portraits. ‘Skins‘, released in 2007, focused on a generation marked by excesses and emotional disorientation through the portrait of a group of Bristol adolescents, in an environment of parties, drugs, sex, food disorders or bullying. ‘Misfitsanother jewel of British television, incorporated fantastic elements to explore youth marginality through the filter of the fantastic genre and science fiction. The premise is as striking as subversive: a group of problematic young people who are fulfilling community services for minor crimes is achieved by a strange thunderstorm, and each of them develops a supernatural power linked, in a symbolic way, to their insecurities or personal traumas. Before them was’Shameless‘, which showed the cycle of inherited poverty and family fractures in the suburbs. Set in a fictional urbanization of Manchester, the series follows a dysfunctional family and its neighbors, and pulls the characteristic British corrosive humor for its narrative thread. Now comes a new portrait with ‘adolescence’, which moves away from the noise of the collective parties and crises, and is committed to silence in front of a screen that fits in the palm of the hand and by a contained violence that is created in solitude, despite the irony of being, supposedly, a hyperconnected society.
Health and education
In this sense, the series can be considered a contemporary heiress of the realistic and committed approach which has characterized many British productions with young people as main figures, such as ‘Byker Grove’, ‘Waterloo Road’ or ‘Sub girls’, driven from the BBC that, as a public television, has opted for a realistic, compromised and pedagogical approach. These series, of which they drink ‘adolescence’, have reflected the dilemmas of different generations of young peoplecontributing to an audiovisual tradition that has managed to look at youth without paternalism, with a clear will to cause reflection and change.
The debate generated by ‘adolescence’ has also reached the health and educational scope. The opinions among experts are divided. The child psychiatrist Abigail Huertas, author of the book ‘I just need you to accept me’, has been critical: «Valuing the great work of the actors, she has not finished convincing me, because she does not reflect what I see in consultation. I know that the series has received good reviews, but not always what works for some fits with everyone ». According to orchards, The series could generate a distorted and alarmist vision. «It scares, moves away and does not add. Leave a bad grounds but does not contribute a little of hope. “I don’t know if families are scared of this fiction is the best way to become aware” and, in their opinion, “collect only hazardous stereotypes ».
For her part, the professor and disseminator of positive discipline Diana Al Azem, author of ‘Adolescentz, from A to Z’, has defended that ‘adolescence’ “is A powerful mirroror that forces adults to reflect on how we are raising, educating and understanding our young people in the 21st century ». For her, fiction interpens both families and teachers: «What messages are our children receiving about masculinity? Are we promoting empathy, vulnerability and respect, or perpetuating toxic ideals that disconnect them from themselves and others? One of the greatest achievements is its honest and raw representation of Masculinity in crisis with the emotional chaos of pubertythe social isolation and the pressure of fitting in molds that no longer work ».
Also the authorities, such as the Guernsey police, have spoken about the series. Laura Simpson, responsible for digital security, said: «We must not bury the head in the sand. This must be A touch of attention to parents, caregivers and professionals ».
Beyond the sequence plane: a technique prodigy with which to capture the emotion of the moment
Fernando Muñoz Madrid
Philip Barantini’s proposal to roll in a sequence plane – this is, in a single take -time real time – each chapter of ‘adolescence’ seeks to suffocate the viewer as much as the story of the young Jamie Miller, turned into a murderer before the blindness of parents and educators. It is not something new or little tested, but every time the “experiment” goes well it becomes something brilliant, a kind of artificial fire that no longer surprises but that you cannot look away. The idea of being able to see a real hour without cuts of the life of the protagonists causes a feeling of realism and ‘voyeurism’ difficult to reach with a traditional cut assembly. It also generates a uneasiness in the viewer, an idea that time, always malleable in fiction, exhausts here.
The ‘sequence plane’ has been an explored resource in the cinema since almost its origins, only limited by the technique. The heavy cameras, the limited rolls of celluloid … prevented the ‘long take’ that the digital has now facilitated. In addition, in recent years, the sequence plane has become a narrative fun for large filmmakers that are passed through the small screen with more money and less vetoes than when they start looking for financing for a feature film. We have recently seen it in the final chapter of ‘The New Years’, by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, or a little earlier, in the applauded outcome of episode 4 of season 1 of’True detective‘, that although they are only ten minutes they become long as a life imprisonment.
In the cinema, Barantini himself already filmed in real time ‘Boil‘, Fabulosa tape that passed through the billboard without penalty or glory. AND All the greats played at some point with very long sequences In some of his masterpieces, such as Hitchcock (‘La Soga’), Berlanga (‘El Verdugo’), Kubrick (‘Gloria Paths’ or ‘The Shining’), Welles (‘Be bad of evil’) … also among recognized active filmmakers, like Gus van Sant (‘Elephant’), Campanella (‘The secret of his eyes’), Rodrigo Cortés ( Place ‘), Pedro Costa (‘ The Blood ‘) … others, such as Sam Mendes (‘ 1917 ‘), rolled a movie “a shot”, although with dozens of microcorts. Matías Bize also in ‘The punishment’. Nothing like Sokúrov’s madness in ‘The Russian Ark’, Studied Plane Sequence of 90 minutes without cuts, with 2,000 extras at the Hermitage Museum to break down 300 years of Russia’s history.
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