DAZED AND CONFUSED

DAZED AND CONFUSED (Directed by Richard Linklater. Starring Jason London, Michelle Burke, Wiley Wiggins)

To the roaring clarion call of Alice Cooper’s “School’s out for summer . . .”, a gallery of American teenagers flee their classrooms and start their holidays the way they mean to continue: joking, bullying, arguing, flirting and mostly getting very drunk and extremely stoned. “If I ever start referring to these as the best days of my life, remind me to kill myself,” one character complains, although after an evening of such conspicuous consumption that it could easily be described as the best daze of his life.

Richard Linklater was the first Generation X film-maker, his inventive cult hit Slacker introducing the kind of loose ended, philosophically slothful and retro-obsessed characters who have since become a staple of American youth drama (in this respect he can almost be blamed for Winona Ryder, even though he didn’t actually employ her). His follow up goes back to at least Generation B (that’s B as in Black Sabbath, Beer and huge Bowls of pot). Although perfectly set in 1976 (that hair, those clothes and, God help us, is that Ted Nugent on the soundtrack?) these adolescents are just as slack as today’s, on the crossroads between childhood and adulthood and at a loss as to which direction they should cruise in their daddy’s car.

The film follows 18 hours in the life of a huge gallery of characters, superbly portrayed by a youthful ensemble. In a bizarre and genuinely disturbing initiation rite to teenhood, the high school seniors terrorise and then fraternise with the incoming freshmen. Although employing more recognisable dramatic structure than he did in Slacker, Linklater only makes a nod towards the conventions of dramatic narrative, with little in the way of resolution. Instead he binds a large variety of character driven parallel plot strands together, and concentrates on creating the sense of being there, on the verge, uncertain of anything but the moment. The bright eyed junior Mitch (the superbly named Wiley Wiggins) get his first taste of drink, smoke and sex, while the handsome but ill at ease senior Pink seems to be staring uncertainly into the future, coming to a decision to shrug off the yoke of his elders but not quite sure what he is going to replace it with. Between these two are a gallery of sometimes amusing, sometimes pathetic, always well drawn characters: wimps, thugs, aspiring intellectuals, party animals, bitches, smart-asses . . . well, pretty much everybody you ever went to school with gets a look in somewhere.

In ’76 I was the same age as many of these characters, and this perfectly pitched depiction of a life of drugs, drink, sex and cars sent a shiver of recognition down my spine. NOT. This is the world Wayne and Garth grew up in, and despite the sense that it is authentically captured it may be hard for viewers on this side of the Atlantic to actually identify with it. It is a film that demands the laughter of recognition, but these are the rites of another culture. It is the kind of youth we saw in Porky’s and Animal House, although presented with an understated sympathy and lack of melodrama that brings it into the real world. I know the people but not the situations - in Ireland rock and roll rebellion took many other forms. But at least Linklater reclaims the youth movie from the grubby hands of John Hughes, and depicts the drug addled daze and spiritual confusion without condescension. Just say yes. And toke a friend.