Boyhood is an outstanding work against the backdrop of all the pictures dealing with the problems of growing up. The director tells the story of the young man Mason, who from a small 5-year-old boy reaches adulthood, forming his own picture of the world. The young man’s story is a difficult one, as he has had to go through his parents’ divorce and feel the separation between his father and mother. For more than 150 minutes, the audience observes the boy’s perception of life’s difficulties around him. He makes mistakes, he is convinced of the rightness and the opposite of the inadequacy of the adults’ advice. Throughout the 12 years of filming and rewriting the script, the director never wavered in his honest and truthful style of storytelling.
The audience sees life in its natural, even patriarchal, flow. There is a clear link between the generations, with Mason as one link in the chain. Reflections on life and family give needed engagement in unpretentious dialogues, infusing conversations with originality and a desire for strong advice. In many ways, it shows the family bond without the glosses and pathos. That can not help but please, making the viewing experience as authentic as possible.
The main choice that the young man faces throughout the film is related to the attempt to understand where the true desire lies and where the fear of meeting the expectations of others is hidden. At each of the stages of Mason’s personality formation, the audience grows closer to him to a certain extent, recognizing his own traits in his example. The final scene in the film is the most important moment in the entire narrative, as the viewer can see the result of the journey. The director treats the story of his character with great trepidation, so the final point of this story was presented within a rather long scene.
At its beginning, the audience sees a shot of the main character agreeing with his friends to go on a hiking trip. This moment foreshadows that the viewer will see a definite denouement in the background of nature. The next shot, lasting about 80 seconds, shows the road through the canyon, during which the protagonist has a pleasant dialogue with a girl. Finally, the next shot, also lasting around 160 seconds, shows the natural landscape, against which Mason reveals himself to the viewer in the fullness of his soul. The effect of the last two shots is to create the necessary backdrop to portray the main character at the right angle for the director. Friends, the beautiful nature is the necessary basis for the viewer to be at one with Mason’s state of mind. By making such provocative shots, the filmmaker creates the necessary space for everyone to enter into the young man’s worldview.
It is no coincidence that the latter speaks of beginning to experience life in every moment of it. This is why the effect of slowing down time is created, as every word, every detail of nature, every look is felt particularly keenly. It can be argued that the slowed down shots at the end of the film to some extent break the rhythm of the entire work. The dynamism of the plot, describing the boy’s growing up and expressing the idea that time is very fleeting, is interrupted by long scenes. The latter are necessary to show that the perception of life and its speed depends solely on inner perception. The young man’s words and condition allow the audience to understand that the hero is close to the sense of true happiness that the director would wish for the hero himself. This is enhanced by a significant visual effect in the form of a colorful natural backdrop, which has a significant symbolic load. Canyons and mountainous terrain demonstrate the unpredictability of life and the inevitability of many trials.
The sunset, against which the last minutes of the film unfold, in turn signifies the calmness of the hero’s inner state. He is ready to enjoy life with all its difficulties, he sees in every second of his existence a great sense. In order for these visual images to affect the viewer on a conscious or unconscious level and create the desired impression for the author, long shots were used. Once one is able to rise a little higher above the circumstances, one simultaneously manages to penetrate deeper into their essence and truly experience a moment in life that will never happen again.
Thus, if the director had chosen the option of a more intense narrative in the film’s finale, from a formal point of view it would have provoked an incomplete effect. However, the main thing that the viewer is deprived of with a higher frame rate is a true intimacy with the hero, felt as a reward from the author for the journey he and Mason have traveled together. As in many dramatic films, the finale is a point for reflection, and the director provides ample time for the latter.