24 Jan
Growing up is anything but straightforward. It’s often messy, engaging the full spectrum of emotions much more readily than adult life. Couple this with the felt needs and pressure to grow up quickly, and you end up with jumbled expectations and confusing identity issues.
5 Feet Tall and Rising captures this crossroads of innocence, and the need to both keep it and shed it. I felt a little strange about this film at first. It felt awkward to me to hear these kids talking as they do, with such coarse language and posturing themselves as more grown up than they are. But their posturing, quite obviously, is a front for their insecurities.
The result of these conflicting forces in each of the characters in this film is powerful. They struggle to prove they are strong enough for their world, while ultimately desiring to experience something real, and to be accepted for who they are. It taps into the raw emotions that we first encounter as children, but often learn to simply manage, rather than fully understand. Perhaps adults are often just better at the facade than children, but those desires and questions are often still there well into our established careers and relationships.
Beautifully captured with gritty textures, and a documentary feel, you get a sense of very real personalties. The director chose to use non-actors here, which can be very risky, but ultimately makes this piece feel very raw and real. Often the use of children as protagonists can help the viewer tap into the human experience a little more easily. We tend to let down our guard a bit, and are more inclined to be sympathetic towards children, as they lay bare the basest fears and desires of the human experience. Sometimes this can feel contrived, but here, I think it works very well.
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